Bell v. State

• Decision Date: 19 March 1894
• Citation: 19 S.E. 244,93 Ga. 557
• Parties: BELL v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

19 S.E. 244

93 Ga. 557

BELL v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia

March 19, 1894

Syllabus by the Court.

1. A statement by the accused that he knows who committed a crime and that he was present when another person (naming him) committed it, is not a confession, direct or indirect, of his own guilt. Nor is his failure to deny, during a legal investigation before a judicial officer, a statement imputed to him by another accused person, equivalent to an admission that the imputation is true; silence on such an occasion being, if not required, at least justified, as matter of decorum, in the presence of a tribunal.

2. The evidence being entirely circumstantial, and, though consistent with the guilt of the accused, not inconsistent with every other rational hypothesis, and being insufficient to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, a new trial is ordered.

Error from superior court, Bibb county; C. L. Bartlett, Judge.

Willie Bell was convicted of arson, and, a new trial having been denied, he brings error. Reversed.

Ellis & Jordan, G. V. Steed, and M. W. Harris, for plaintiff in error.

W. H Felton, Jr., Sol. Gen., for the State.

SIMMONS J.

Willie Bell and John Fambro were indicted for arson. They severed. Bell was convicted, and, his motion for a new trial being overruled, he excepted. The house alleged to have been burned was in the city of Macon, and was occupied as a dwelling by Mrs. Ray, a daughter of the owner; and Bell was a servant living upon the premises. It appears that, between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning, Mrs. Ray discovered that the back-door steps, and the room which had been occupied by Bell, were on fire. She did not think he was occupying the room that night. It does not appear that he was seen on the premises. One witness testified, however, that among the crowd on the opposite side of the street, looking at the fire, she saw a person whom she "most thought" was Bell. According to another witness, Bell said he was near the house, at Henry Hammond's restaurant, at the time of the fire. When asked by Mrs. Ray if he did not set the house on fire, he denied it; and, upon her asking him then why he did not help her to get her things out of the house, he said he did not know it was her house. Subsequently, he stated that Fambro set the house on fire, and that he saw him do so. A woman employed on the premises testified that about 10 days before the fire she discovered a little bottle of oil and a lamp in the yard, near the house, and asked Bell about them but he said he knew nothing about them. Upon an investigation before the recorder, Fambro stated that Bell acknowledged to him, at the time the lamp and oil were found, that they were his, and said he wished he "had done it last night," but, when Fambro asked what he meant, replied, "I had better not talk too much." Bell was present, but did not deny this statement at the time it was made to the recorder; but during the course of the investigation he repeated to the recorder the statement he had already made,--that the house was burned by Fambro. One of the witnesses stated that the fire started about 10 feet from where the cooking was done, and could not have originated from the stove. There was no other evidence tending to connect Bell with the burning. On the other hand, Bell introduced testimony to the effect that he...