Bridges v. State

• Decision Date: 03 December 1970
• Docket Number: No. 26081,26081
• Citation: 227 Ga. 24,178 S.E.2d 861
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court
• Parties: Marvin BRIDGES v. The STATE.

Page 861

178 S.E.2d 861

227 Ga. 24

Marvin BRIDGES v. The STATE.

No. 26081.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Dec. 3, 1970.

Glenn Zell, Atlanta, for appellant.

Lewis R. Slaton, Dist. Atty., Stephen A. Land, Tony H. Hight, J. Melvin England Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Harold N. Hill, Jr., Executive Asst. Atty. Gen., Marion O. Gordon, William R. Childers, Jr., Asst. Attys. Gen., Atlanta, for appellee.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court

FELTON, Justice.

1. The evidence authorized the verdict of guilty of robbery, for which the defendant was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in the state penitentiary. Enumerated error 4 is without merit for this reason and others hereinafter stated.

2. It is not shown that the trial court erred in overruling defense counsel's motion for a mistrial on the ground, in effect, that the State's counsel, in his unreported argument to the jury, may have stated in substance that, in his opinion, there was no doubt of the defendant's guilt. The prosecuting attorney has the right and duty to argue his version of what the evidence produced at the trial has proved. O'Bryant v. State, 222 Ga. 326(7), 149 S.E.2d 654. The trial judge, who was present during the argument, ruled that no opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused had been expressed, but merely conclusions and inferences from the evidence. See Johnson v. State, 150 Ga. 67(1), 102 S.E. 439. '* * * (T)he burden is upon the party challenging the legality of a decision to prove error by the record. Saliba v. Saliba, 201 Ga. 681, 688, 40 S.E.2d 732. The presumption is in favor of the regularity and legality of all proceedings in the court below. Grinad v. State, 34 Ga. 270(1).' Newton v. Newton, 222 Ga. 175(2), 149 S.E.2d 128. The defendant had available the procedure of Code Ann. § 6-805(d) (Ga.L.1965, pp. 18, 24) with which to amplify the record. In the absence of a record of the argument in question, it is impossible to determine that the remarks were prejudicial to the defendant or that the court erred in failing to grant defendant's motion for a mistrial on account of them. See White v. State, 118 Ga.App. 515(2), 164 S.E.2d 158. Enumerated error 1 is without merit.

3. 'Evidence as to the time when and the place where arrested, the manner of the arrest, how the accused was armed, and whether he resisted, and all the circumstances connected with the arrest, are proper matters to be submitted to the jury to be weighed by them for what they are worth. Wynne v. State, 56 Ga. 113, 114, 119(5); McClung v. State, 206 Ga. 421, 423, 57 S.E.2d 559.' (Emphasis supplied.) Clements v. State, 226 Ga. 66(1), 172 S.E.2d 600. Accordingly, where there was evidence that the victim had just paid $2.50 for his share of a pint of whiskey just prior to the robbery; that the defendant took from the victim a $20 bill, two $5 bills and twelve $1 bills, as well as some coins; that a $1 bill was found at the scene of the crime; and that the defendant had paid someone $2.25 to be driven two or three miles from the scene of the crime, the trial court did not err in admitting in evidence the $20 bill, $5 bill, ten $1 bills and coins found in the possession of the defendant upon his arrest within several minutes after the occurrence of the robbery. The jury might have found that the slight discrepancy between the two amounts was caused by the victim's having failed to subtract from the amount he had previously the $2.50 which he testified he paid for some whiskey just prior to the robbery, plus the possibility that some of the money, in addition to the $1 bill found on the ground after the robbery, may have been dropped in the defendant's haste to flee the scene of his crime....