Brown v. State, (No. 17497.)

• Decision Date: 09 November 1926
• Docket Number: (No. 17497.)
• Citation: 135 S.E. 513,36 Ga.App. 83
• Parties: BROWN et al. v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

36 Ga.App. 83

135 S.E. 513

BROWN et al.

v.STATE.

(No. 17497.)

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No, l.

Nov. 9, 1926.

(Syllabus by Editorial Staff.)

Error from Superior Court, Coffee County; Harry D. Reed, Judge.

Major Brown and others were convicted of an offense, and they bring error. Affirmed.

Quincey & Quincey and Dickerson & Kelly, all of Douglas, for plaintiffs in error.

A. B. Spence, Sol. Gen., of Waycross, for the State.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court.

BROYLES, C. J. [1] 1. "On the trial of one for murder, where the evidence or the defendant's statement at the trial would authorize the jury to find that the person killing acted in self-defense on account of a reasonable fear aroused in his mind by words, threats, or menaces, in connection with the other facts in the case, it is not erroneous for the court, in instructing the jury on the law of voluntary manslaughter, as contained in the Penal Code of 1910, § 65, to fail or refuse to charge in immediate connection therewith the right of the jury to consider words threats, or menaces in determining whether the circumstances attending the homicide were such as to justify the fears of a reasonable man that his life was in imminent danger or that a felony was about to be committed upon his person."

"Instructions on the law of voluntary manslaughter and justifiable homicide should be independent of each other." "Although the facts of a given case might authorize an instruction as to the right of the jury to consider words, menaces, or threats, in connection with the facts of the case, as being sufficient to arouse the fears of a reasonable man that his person was in apparent or real danger of a felonious attack or that his life was in imminent danger, the failure to give such an instruction would not be erroneous solely for the reason that the court gave in charge to the jury the law of voluntary manslaughter in the language of the Penal Code of 1910, § 65." Deal v State, 145 Ga. 33 (1, 2, 3), 88 S. E. 573. Under the above-stated rulings, ground 3 of the amendment to the motion for a new trial is without merit.

2. "The trial judge is vested with large discretion in the conduct of judicial proceedings, and he may properly admonish the jury as to the desirability and importance ofagreeing on a verdict, and may urge them to make every effort to do so consistent with their consciences." 11 Enc. PI. & Pr. 304; Golatt v. State, 130 Ga. 19, 60 S. E. 107. In the instant case, after the jury had been considering of their verdict for about 22 hours, t...