Bonner v. State

• Decision Date: 15 October 1921
• Docket Number: 2686.
• Citation: 109 S.E. 291,152 Ga. 214
• Parties: BONNER v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

109 S.E. 291

152 Ga. 214

BONNER v. STATE.

No. 2686.

Supreme Court of Georgia

October 15, 1921

Rehearing Denied Nov. 17, 1921.

Syllabus by the Court.

The court's definition of reasonable doubt, as given in his charge to the jury, was substantially correct.

The statement of the accused to the sheriff in regard to the crime charged and the circumstances attending its commission amounted to a confession, and afforded direct evidence of his participation in the crime and of his guilt of the offense charged; and the court did not err, there being no written request to charge upon the subject of circumstantial evidence, in omitting to charge the jury upon that subject.

Under the evidence as to the circumstances under which the confession of the accused was made, the court did not err in admitting it in evidence and in submitting to the jury, under proper instructions, the question as to whether it was voluntarily made.

There was sufficient evidence to authorize the verdict.

Error from Superior Court, Jones County; Jas. B. Park, Judge.

Joe Bonner was convicted of murder, and he brings error. Affirmed.

Paul Maynard and Edward S. Ragsdale, both of Macon, for plaintiff in error.

Doyle Campbell, Sol. Gen., and A. Y. Clement, both of Monticello and Geo. M. Napier, Atty. Gen., Seward M. Smith, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.

BECK P.J.

Joe (Buster) Bonner was tried under an indictment charging him with the offense of the murder of A. S. Jones. Upon the trial he was found guilty; no recommendation of mercy being made. He made a motion for new trial, which was overruled, and he excepted.

1. The court in part charged the jury as follows:

"The court charges you, when the defendant files a plea of not guilty to this bill of indictment, it puts in issue every material allegation contained therein; and it devolves upon the state to satisfy the minds of the jury, by the evidence in the case, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the defendant's guilt. A reasonable doubt means exactly what it says. A reasonable doubt may grow out of the evidence, or the want of evidence, or be engendered by the defendant's statement. While the law requires the state to demonstrate the guilt of the defendant by the evidence in the case beyond a reasonable doubt before you would be authorized to convict him, the law does not require the state to demonstrate the guilt of the defendant to an absolute or mathematical certainty. A reasonable doubt does not mean a fanciful doubt it does not mean a conjectural doubt; it does not mean an imaginative doubt; but, as I said to you, it means a doubt founded upon reason."

This charge was excepted to upon the ground that it does not properly define reasonable doubt, and because the court failed to charge that the burden of proof was upon the state of Georgia to prove every material allegation in the indictment. The exceptions to this charge show no ground for the grant of a new trial. The definition of reasonable doubt was substantially correct, and the fact that the judge did not, in this particular part of the charge, state to the jury that the burden was upon the state to prove the material allegations in the indictment does not render this part of the charge defective. This first ground of the amended motion for a new trial is an attack upon the charge of the court there set forth; and if the court failed altogether to charge upon the subject of the burden of proof, that should have been made a distinct ground of the motion, and the failure to charge upon that subject somewhere in the court's instructions to the jury affords no ground of criticism of the excerpt from the charge that is brought under review in the ground of the motion we are now dealing with.

2. Error is assigned upon the failure of the court to charge the jury on the law of circumstantial evidence, and to instruct them that to warrant a conviction on circumstantial evidence the facts proved must not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt, but must exclude every other hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused. It is contended by counsel for the movant that the evidence required this charge upon circumstantial evidence. This criticism of the court's charge is not meritorious, unless the state's case was based entirely on circumstantial evidence. The plaintiff in error contends that it was such a case. This contention, however, is not sound if the testimony of the witness Middlebrooks, the sheriff of the county, in regard to a statement made to him by the accused, was for the consideration of the jury, under the court's instructions. The witness referred to testified that in company with other named parties he arrested the accused at the home of one Harrison Jones. Witness had heard that the accused had a pistol in his possession, said to be the same as that which the deceased had; he found the pistol on the accused, and it looked like the one described to witness as the one belonging to the deceased. Witness took the accused to the front porch of the house where he was arrested; and at this time Tucker, one of the parties accompanying witness, hit the accused over the head with a pistol. Witness further testified:

"I asked him [the accused] where he got the gun. He said from Sam Myrick on Monday morning. I asked him if it was not Mr. Jones' gun. He replied, 'If it is, I don't know it.' I then said, 'Buster, you know something about this killing; tell me about it;' and I said, 'Nobody is going to hurt you.' He said, 'If you will take me to where Mr. Jones was killed, I will tell you all about it.' * * * When he made the request I took him over there. * * * We reached his house at 10 o'clock in the morning, about a week after the homicide. When we got there Buster Bonner got out of the car and said, 'Come on, I will

...