Chadwick v. State
| Decision Date | 06 December 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 23205,23205 |
| Parties | Charles CHADWICK v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
The errors enumerated in the present case show no ground for reversal and hence the judgment of the trial court must be affirmed.
Charles Chadwick was indicted in Whitfield Superior Court for the offense of armed robbery on January 19, 1965. Counsel was appointed for him on January 19, 1965, and the case came on for trial on January 26, 1965. A motion was made for continuance on the ground that the defendant's counsel had not had sufficient time to prepare the case. The motion was overruled. The defendant petitioned the court to furnish a psychiatrist to examine him and testify for him. The petition was in substance: that the petitioners believe that the defendant was insane at the time of the commission of the alleged offense and is now insane and lacks the mental capacity to understand the nature of the charges against him; that the defendant had previously been sent to Milledgeville State Hospital for observation where he was under the treatment of Dr. Chance, a psychiatrist, who 'informed the defendant that he was on the verge of insanity and that when he had alcoholic beverages of any kind, he was temporarily insane.' This motion was overruled. The case then proceeded to trial.
The undisputed evidence of the victims of the robbery, a Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Crider, was that the defendant gained admission to their home upon the pretext that he desired to use their phone; then proceeded to rob them at gunpoint, stole Mr. Crider's automobile and forced Mrs. Crider to ride with him until, after a wild chase in which the automobile was wrecked and Mrs. Crider injured, the defendant was apprehended. The officers corroborated the victims' testimony concerning the flight and apprehension of the defendant.
The defendant made a voluntary confession of his guilt to the officers. He corroborated the testimony of the victims and the officers and affirmed his confession in his unsworn statement. The part of the statement material to the case was as follows:
The jury convicted the defendant and fixed his punishment at life imprisonment. He was sentenced accordingly. In due course he filed an appeal in which he enumerated the errors which are discussed in the opinion.
James M. Barnes, L. Hugh Kemp, Dalton, for appellant.
Robert L. Vining, Jr., Sol. Gen., Dalton, Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Rubye G. Jackson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, for appellee.
1. The first assignment of error complains that the defendant's motion for continuance was overruled. The motion was made upon the ground that appointed counsel did not have time to adequately prepare the defense, and the appellant relies upon Saylor v. State, 183 Ga. 440, 188 S.E. 514, a four justice opinion. The case cited is factually different from the case we now consider. In the Saylor case the defendant was an escapee of the State insane asylum and time was needed to procure records of that institution and other evidence touching his sanity. In the present case the application discloses the defendant had, at some undisclosed time in the past, been sent to the State Hospital for observation and was, according to his own statement, informed by a Doctor Chance that he was on the verge of insanity and that when he had alcoholic beverages of any kind, he was temporarily insane.
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...Dolan v. People, 449 P.2d 828 (1969) (Colorado); Ellzey v. State, 158 Tex.Cr.R. 604, 259 S.W.2d 211 (1953). See also, Chadwick v. State, 221 Ga. 574, 146 S.E.2d 283 (1965); Gunter v. State, 223 Ga. 290, 154 S.E.2d 608 (1967). Some cases have reached a contrary result, requiring the appointm......
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