Burks v. State

• Decision Date: 10 April 1893
• Citation: 92 Ga. 461,17 S.E. 619
• Parties: BURKS. v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

17 S.E. 619

92 Ga. 461

BURKS.

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

April 10, 1893.

Criminal Law—Appeal—Sufficiency of Evidence.

The evidence implicating the accused being rather weak, and wholly circumstantial, his good character might well have been treated by the jury as an answer to it; but the jury, in the light of all the evidence, having found him guilty, and the trial judge having approved the finding, this court will leave the verdict to stand, there being no sufficient legal reason for overruling the judgment denying a new trial.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from superior court, Sumter county; W. H. Fish, Judge.

John Burks, having been convicted of burglary, and his motion for new trial having been overruled, brings error. Affirmed.

The following is the official report: John Burks was indicted for burglary in breaking and entering the smokehouse of Mrs. Wise, and stealing therefrom bacon, hams, and middling meat. He was found guilty, and, his motion for new trial being overruled, excepted. The grounds of his motion were that the verdict was contrary to law and evidence, equity, and justice; contrary to the evidence, and without evidence to support it; and contrary to law and the charge of the court; unwarranted by law or the evidence. The testimony for the state, briefly stated, was to the effect: On the night of the 16th of May, 1891, in Sumter county, Mrs. Wise's smokehouse, which had been locked shortly before night, was entered, and meat stolen therefrom. The back of the smokehouse made part of the inclosure of the garden. The smokehouse was entered from the rear by digging under. About a week or 10 days before the burglary defendant was at the smokehouse, having swapped Mrs. Wise some cotton seed for some meat, and going there to get his meat. The morning after the burglary an examination of the premises was made, and tracks were found all around the place where the entrance had been made, and signs of grease and salt. The hole was large enough for defendant to have gone under, and was dug with a shovel or hoe or something of that kind. The tracks were followed through the garden to the back of the garden, and as far as they could be tracked, right up to the back yard of defendant's premises, where the soil became hard. There was grease and some threads of cloth about the hole, as if the meat had been dragged out there, and there was grease and signs of thread and cloth on the garden fence. On the next fence there was grease and threads....