French v. State
| Decision Date | 28 September 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 31391,31391 |
| Citation | 237 Ga. 620,229 S.E.2d 410 |
| Parties | Charles Leon FRENCH v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
William L. Gower, Atlanta, for appellant.
Lewis R. Slaton, Dist. Atty., Donald J. Stein, Asst. Dist. Atty., Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Isaac Byrd, Staff Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, for appellee.
Appellant French and Michael Fortson were jointly tried and convicted of armed robbery and French appeals.
1. The trial court did not err in denying appellant's pretrial written motion for severance.
2. There was direct eye witness testimony from one of the victims that appellant was one of the robbers. There is sufficient evidence to support the guilty verdict.
3. At the trial, the state was allowed, over objection, to introduce evidence of independent crimes as similar transactions through the testimony of four witnesses. The witnesses testified to being victims of armed robberies which had various similarities to the one for which the appellant was charged. None of the four witnesses was able to make an in court identification of appellant. There is no evidence in the record that any of these witnesses ever identified appellant. While it is clear that there was ample evidence to connect appellant's co-defendant with these independent crimes, the most that can be said of the evidence connecting appellant with these crimes is that it showed that in three of the four robberies, one of the men was short. Appellant is short.
Before evidence of independent crimes is admissible two conditions must be satisfied. First, there must be evidence that the defendant was in fact the perpetrator of the independent crime. Second, there must be sufficient similarity or connection between the independent crime and the offense charged, that proof of the former tends to prove the latter. Bacon v. State, 209 Ga. 261, 71 S.E.2d 615 (1952); Howard v. State, 211 Ga. 186, 84 S.E.2d 455 (1954).
The importance of the first condition has long been recognized by this court: 'In order to justify the admission of evidence relating to an independent crime committed by the accused, it is absolutely essential that there should be evidence establishing the fact that the independent crime was committed by the accused . . .' Cawthon v. State, 119 Ga. 395, 409, 46 S.E. 897, 901 (1904). Even if we were to find that the requirement of a connection between the independent offenses and the crime charged here was met, we could not find, on this...
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Frazier v. State
...the testimony of the two accomplices was insufficient to establish that appellant perpetrated the extrinsic crime. French v. State, 237 Ga. 620, 621, 229 S.E.2d 410 (1976). Nor can we agree that it was irrelevant that, two months prior to the crime on trial, appellant committed a similar cr......
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Rivers v. State
...the meaning of Code Ann. § 27-1303. See Hartline v. State, 161 Ga.App. 847(2), 288 S.E.2d 902 (1982). 5. Relying on French v. State, 237 Ga. 620, 229 S.E.2d 410 (1976); State v. Johnson, 246 Ga. 654, 272 S.E.2d 321 (1980); and Lane v. State, 247 Ga. 19, 273 S.E.2d 397 (1981), the defendant ......
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Davis v. State
...of other crimes unrelated to the crimes for which he was on trial. He relies on the line of cases exemplified by French v. State, 237 Ga. 620, 621, 229 S.E.2d 410 (1976), where this court said: "Before evidence of independent crimes is admissible, two conditions must be satisfied. First, th......
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Amadeo v. Kemp
...243 Ga. 627, 255 S.E.2d 718, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 974, 100 S.Ct. 469, 62 L.Ed.2d 389 (1979).2 As stated in French v. State, 237 Ga. 620, 621, 229 S.E.2d 410, 411 (1976), the first criterion for the admission of evidence of independent crimes is that the defendant must be shown to have bee......