Brooks v. State
| Decision Date | 08 July 1895 |
| Citation | 96 Ga. 353,23 S.E. 413 |
| Parties | BROOKS v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Criminal Law—Hearsay Evidence—Burglary— Possession of Stolen Goods—Presumptions—Requests to Charge.
1. The declarations of an alleged owner, claiming certain goods found in the possession of a person accused of burglary, made some time after the date of the commission of the alleged offense, and not in the presence of the person accused, are hearsay only, and should not be admitted.
2. Where a person accused of an offense makes a confession, in which he implicates another in its commission, declarations of the latter, denying complicity, made to the officers when informed of the confession, are hearsay only, and upon the trial of the former should not be admitted against him.
3. No presumption of guilt arises from the mere possession by the accused of goods alleged to have been stolen from the premises at the time of the commission of the burglary, unless the goods were shown to have been in fact stolen therefrom, and the accused is found recently thereafter in the possession of them; and a charge of the court upon this phase of the case, which leaves entirely out of consideration both or either of these elements, is erroneous.
4. It is never too late for counsel to present to the court pertinent written requests to charge, until the jury has retired for consideration of the cause; and a refusal of such a request upon the ground that it came too late—it being handed to the judge upon the conclusion of the general charge, but before the jury had in fact retired—was erroneous.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error from superior court Wilkes county; Seaborn Reese, Judge.
Prank Brooks was convicted of burglary, and brings error. Reversed.
Colley & Sims and P. W. Gilbert, for plaintiff in error.
W. M. Howard, Sol. Gen., for the State.
ATKINSON, J. 1. The defendant was indicted for the offense of burglary. On thetrial of the case the state offered to prove by one of its witnesses that he had taken some of the goods found in the possession of the defendant, and carried them to a storekeeper whose store had been burglarized, and that upon showing.them to the storekeeper he exclaimed that they were his goods. To the admission of these declarations the defendant objected upon the ground that they were hearsay only, and were, therefore, not admissible. This objection was overruled by the court, and the testimony admitted. We think that the objection to the testimony was well taken. As to whether or not the property alleged to have been stolen was in fact the property of the storekeeper, and had ever been in fact in the store alleged to have been burglarized, were material questions bearing directly upon the guilt or innocence of the accused. These declarations made by the storekeeper could...
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