Camp v. State

• Decision Date: 10 August 1934
• Docket Number: No. 10358.,10358.
• Parties: CAMP. v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

179 Ga. 292

175 S.E. 646

CAMP.

v.STATE.

No. 10358.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Aug. 10, 1934.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. "Where the defendant in a criminal case exercises his right of making a statement not under oath, such statement may he contradicted by testimony as to the facts which it narrates." Doyle v. State, 77 Ga. 513.

2. The court erred in admitting the hearsay testimony to which objection was made, and under the facts of the case this error is such as to require a new trial.

3. Since a new trial is ordered for the reason indicated above, no ruling is made as to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict.

Error from Superior Court, Paulding County; J. R. Hutcheson, Judge.

A. J. Camp, Sr., was convicted of rape, and he brings error.

Reversed.

W. A. Foster, Jr., W. L. Denton, Hal Hutchens, and C. B. McGarity, all of Dallas, Geo. D. Anderson, of Marietta, Lamar Camp, of Maddox, and Matthews & Owens and Porter & Mebane, all of Rome, for plaintiff in error.

S. W. Ragsdale, Sol. Gen., of Dallas, and M. J. Yeomans, Atty. Gen., and B. D. Murphy and Jno. T. Goree, Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.

BELL, Justice.

By the act of July 31, 1918 (Ga. Laws, 1918, p. 259), it was made "unlawful for any person to have sexual or carnal intercourse with any female child under the age of fourteen (14) years, unless such person shall have previously become lawfully married to such female child." Section 1. The act further declared that any person violating its provisions shall be guilty of rape, and on conviction shall be punished as therein stated; "provided, however, that no conviction shall be had for said offense on the unsupported testimony of the female in question." The defendant was convicted of violating this law; and, a new trial being refused, he excepted.

1. The defendant stated to the jury that he had "never had any inclination to run after women, " and had "never lived on the immoral side of life." The court did not err in allowing the prosecution to rebut this statement by the testimony of a physician tending to show that the defendant was recently afflicted with the disease of gonorrhea. Doyle v. State, 77 Ga. 513 (2); Shropshire v. State, 81 Ga. 589, 8 S. E. 450; Goolsby v. State, 133 Ga. 427 (2), 66 S. E. 159; Josey v. State, 137 Ga. 769, 74 S. E. 282; Barnes v. State, 24 Ga. App. 372 (4), 100 S. E. 788.

2. Arthur Clay, a police officer, testified as follows: "It was reported around town that there was some gonorrhea around town. I went to see Trixie [Elsie Brogden, the person alleged in the bill of indictment to have been raped by the defendant], then in jail. I asked her if she had had gonorrhea, and she said she did not know whether or not she had it. I asked her if she had had anything to do with any men, and she said she had." This evidence was objected to upon the ground that it was irrelevant, immaterial, and hearsay. Since the female testified as a witness that she had had intercourse with several men, and also testified without objec-tion to having made a statement to this effect to the police officer, the admission of such testimony of the officer, so far as it related to intercourse, was apparently not cause for a new trial (O'Shields v. State, 55 Ga. 606; Lovott v. State, 60 Ga. 257 (4); Hixon v. State, 130 Ga. 479, 61 S. E. 14), but the same cannot be said of the other portions of the statement, relating to the...