Eaker v. State
| Decision Date | 31 July 1908 |
| Docket Number | 1,238,1,260. |
| Citation | 62 S.E. 99,4 Ga.App. 649 |
| Parties | EAKER v. STATE. BARTON v. SAME. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
When a crime has been committed which, from its nature or the details of its commission, necessarily or probably involved the participation of more than one person, it is permissible for the state to prove, on the trial of one of the persons charged with committing it, that, shortly after the crime was committed, he was seen in company with another person, and that this other person was by the circumstances of the case and by the indicia of guilt found upon him connected with the crime.
Upon reasonable grounds for his suspicion a police officer may without warrant arrest a suspected felon apparently attempting to escape, and after such an arrest may subject the clothing of the prisoner to a reasonable search. Evidence of crime so obtained is not inadmissible against the defendant on the ground that he is thereby compelled to disclose evidence against himself.
[Ed Note.-For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 14, Criminal Law, § 872.]
To render evidence inadmissible on the ground that the prisoner was compelled to produce it against himself, it must appear that such compulsion was used as to rob the prisoner of volition in the matter.
[Ed Note.-For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 14, Criminal Law, § 872.]
Evidence which bears a distinct relevancy to the case on trial is admissible against the defendant, though it tends to show also his complicity in another crime.
Where a defendant has been convicted of burglarizing a bank and attempts to have the verdict set aside on the ground that unknown to him, one of the jurors who tried him was related to a stockholder in the bank, the juror is incompetent to testify to the alleged relationship. The evidence submitted in support of the attack must be such as to show not merely that at the time of the hearing of the motion for a new trial the asserted relationship existed, but definitely that it existed at the time of the juror's service.
The trial was free from error, and the verdict is supported by the evidence.
Error from Superior Court, Tallaferro County; Jos. N. Worley Judge.
J. P. Eaker, alias Horace Thompson, and George Barton, were separately convicted of burglary, and they bring error. Affirmed.
W. N. Maltbie, J. A. Beazley, and B. W. Wall, for plaintiffs in error.
David W. Meadow, Sol. Gen., for the State.
These defendants were separately tried and convicted of burglary. The banking house of the Bank of Sharon was broken into in the nighttime, and the safe blown open by the use of explosives. A few hours later these two men boarded the train of the Georgia Railroad at a station near Sharon. Circumstances raised a suspicion of their complicity in the burglary, and upon telegrams a member of the Augusta police force came upon the train at that point and arrested them as they were leaving it. They were searched, and large pistols and an unusual number of cartridges were found upon them; also, on one of them was found a piece of soap corresponding in character to that used in blowing the safe. As they left the train, one of them was seen to drop a package which upon examination proved to contain dynamite fuses. They were brought back and placed in the jail of Taliaferro county, the county in which the crime was committed. The cashier of the bank, who was acting as prosecutor, asked the sheriff to get him a left shoe from each defendant. The sheriff, without disclosing his purpose, told the men each to give him a shoe. Being handcuffed, they simply lifted their feet, and allowed the sheriff to take off their shoes. The witness who testified to this transaction stated unequivocally that no coercion or intimidation was used to procure the shoes. The shoes so obtained were fitted into the tracks near the bank, and by the correspondence thus established furnished damaging evidence against the prisoners. When the defendants were arrested at Augusta, they claimed to be railroad conductors, and Thompson gave his name as Eaker, producing in corroboration of his statement a railway pass, a membership card in a fraternal order, correspondence, etc., bearing the name of J. H. Eaker. On the trial the true J. H. Eaker appeared and testified that the pass, membership card, etc., were his, and that they had been taken from a satchel in his room at Rock Hill, S. C., a few days before the burglary was committed at Sharon. The prisoner abandoned his contention that he was conductor Eaker, and admitted that his name was Thompson. To the overruling of a motion for a new trial each defendant excepts. The grounds are numerous and will not be taken up seriatim, but a few general rulings will be announced sufficiently broad to cover them all.
1. Throughout several of the exceptions, presented in one form or another, is the point that on the trial of each of these defendants the court admitted testimony which tended to indicate the guilt of the other. The contention is made that the defendants...
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