Brown v. State

• Decision Date: 24 February 1920
• Docket Number: 10351.
• Citation: 102 S.E. 450,24 Ga.App. 774
• Parties: BROWN v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

102 S.E. 450

24 Ga.App. 774

BROWN v. STATE.

No. 10351.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, First Division

February 24, 1920

Syllabus by the Court.

In answer to certain questions certified to it in this case the Supreme Court said (102 S.E. 449):

"By the act approved March 28, 1917 (Acts Ex. Sess. 1917, p 8), it was made unlawful for any person 'to have control, or possess in this state' specified kinds of liquors or beverages. In section 16 of the act it was provided: 'That the punishment for any violation of any of the provisions of this act, wherein a different punishment is not prescribed, shall be as for a misdemeanor as provided in section 1065 of the Penal Code of 1910.' That section of the Penal Code provides: 'Except where otherwise provided, every crime declared to be a misdemeanor is punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, imprisonment not to exceed six months, to work in the chain-gang on the public roads, or on such other public works as the county or state authorities may employ the chain-gang, not to exceed twelve months, any one or more of these punishments in the discretion of the judge.' The city court of Savannah having by law jurisdiction to try persons charged with misdemeanors for violating the prohibition statutes mentioned above (see Acts 1868, p. 165), and upon conviction of the accused to impose any one or all of the penalties specified in Penal Code, § 1065, within the discretion of the trial judge, the superior court has no power, under the writ of certiorari to modify a sentence which imposes a punishment not exceeding the maximum punishment prescribed by that law. See Whitten v. State, 47 Ga. 298; Loeb v Jennings, 133 Ga. 796, 801, 67 S.E. 101, 18 Ann.Cas. 376; Coppage v. State, 4 Ga.App. 696, 62 S.E. 113; 11 Corpus Juris, 106, § 40, and cases cited in note 77; Phillips v. State, 80 Ark. 200, 96 S.W. 742(2).

"(a) There is no special law relating to the city court of Savannah which confers on the judge of the superior court power, on certiorari, to modify a sentence imposed by the judge of the city court of Savannah while acting within his jurisdiction. Under this view the reasoning in Cole v. State, 2 Ga.App. 734, 738, 59 S.E. 24, would not apply. The doctrines pronounced in McDonald v. Ludowici, 3 Ga.App. 654, 656, 60 S.E. 337, and Johnson v. Atlanta, 6 Ga.App. 779, 65 S.E. 810, will not be followed.

"(b) In a case of the character mentioned above, where the trial judge enters a formal judgment imposing a fine for the maximum amount authorized by law, his sentence is not to be held on certiorari as 'excessive and illegal,' on the ground that while imposing sentence the judge stated to the accused that he was endeavoring 'to reach' another person who would probably pay the fine, 'instead of the defendant.'

"2. On the trial in the city court of Savannah of a defendant accused, with others, of violating the prohibition statute mentioned in the preceding note, in so far as the questions propounded by the Court of Appeals show, certain documents were irrelevant; the documents being: (a) copies of certain indictments returnable to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia charging the defendant on trial in the city court of Savannah and others with 'the offense of conspiracy and violation of the Reed-Jones Amendment [U. S. Comp. St. § 8739a] to the Post Office Appropriation act of March, 1917, with the pleas and verdicts thereon'; (b) certain excerpts from the minutes of the United States District Court in the Southern District of Georgia which showed that in two cases against the same persons who were indicted in the city court of Savannah, in one of which they were charged with violation of ...