Campbell v. State

• Decision Date: 10 November 1915
• Docket Number: (No. 43.)
• Citation: 144 Ga. 224,87 S.E. 277
• Parties: CAMPBELL. v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

87 S.E. 277

144 Ga. 224

CAMPBELL.

v.STATE.

(No. 43.)

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Nov. 10, 1915.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from Superior Court, Mitchell County; E. E. Cox, Judge.

D. C. Campbell was convicted of crime, and brings error. Reversed.

J. J. Hill and H. H. Merry, both of Pel-ham, Chas. Watt, Jr., and E. M. Davis, both of Camilla, Stanley S. Bennet, of Quitman, and Pottle & Hofmayer, of Albany, for plaintiff in error.

R. C. Bell, Sol. Gen., of Cairo, P. A. Hooper, of Atlanta, W. M. Harrell, of Bainbridge, Collins & Hoggard, of Camilla, Clifford Walker, Atty. Gen., and Mark Bolding, of Atlanta, for the State.

LUMPKIN, J. [1-6] The headnotes sufficiently show the points decided, and, with one exception, require no elaboration. That exception is the ruling as to the sustaining of the challenge to the juror. It was held in Dumas v. State, 62 Ga. 58, that where acounty commissioner took part officially in promoting a prosecution, by voting county funds to pay a reward for the prisoner's apprehension, by aiding to employ counsel to prosecute, and by aiding in the preparation of the case, which was tried under a special presentment of the grand jury, he should be considered as a voluntary prosecutor, and that his nephew was not a competent juror. In Lyens v. State, 133 Ga. 587, 66 S. E. 792, it was held that where one contributes to a fund to be used in the employment of an attorney to aid the solicitor general in the prosecution of a particular person for an alleged offense with which he is charged, and the attorney renders such aid upon the trial of the case, the person so contributing is to be considered as a voluntary prosecutor, and that one who is related to such prosecutor "within the fourth degree" (why the fourth instead of the ninth is not apparent) is not competent to sit as a juror on such a trial. In a criminal case the state is the real party. But the prosecutor is so far a party that his relatives within the prohibited degree cannot sit upon the jury. Penal Code 1910, § 999, par. 4.

The two cases above mentioned carried the rule to the extent stated. In Atkinson v. State, 112 Ga. 411, 37 S. E. 747, it was held that the fact that a juror is closely related to one acting as a partisan of the state in a criminal prosecution affords no ground for challenging such juror for cause. In the record on file in the clerk's office of this court it appears that such partisan actively assisted the solicitor general in the prosecution, by assisting in...