Fuller v. State
| Decision Date | 07 June 1944 |
| Docket Number | 14798. |
| Citation | 30 S.E.2d 608,197 Ga. 714 |
| Parties | FULLER v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. On the trial under review, upon an indictment charging the offense of murder, the motive for which the State contended was robbery, the court admitted in evidence an indictment charging the same defendant with robbery by force, with a plea of guilty entered thereon, which offense was alleged to have been committed about sixteen months before the alleged murder, over the following objection: 'That in this [murder] case the Supreme Court has ruled that the foregoing evidence, on account of certain similarities, set out in the opinion, between the two cases, was properly admitted to show motive, plan, or scheme, but that the record of the indictment and plea, without more, did not show the points of similarity to which the Supreme Court had referred, and upon which the ruling was based.' Before the court ruled upon the objection, the State was permitted to introduce testimony as to the circumstances of the robbery, and afterwards still other testimony was introduced, showing circumstances of both of the alleged offenses, from all of which the jury were authorized to find several points of similarity between the two offenses as to the manner of commission. The defendant denied that he either robbed or killed the deceased. Held that, in view of the evidence, as a whole, the admission of the indictment and plea of guilty in the robbery case over the objection urged was not cause for a new trial.
(a) Nor did the court err in admitting testimony of the person alleged to have been robbed in the former transaction, over the objection that the record of the evidence in that case was the highest and best evidence.
2. If an attempt be made to discredit a witness on the ground that his testimony is given under the influence of some motive prompting him to make a false or colored statement, he may be allowed to show in reply that he made similar statements at a time when the motive imputed to him did not exist.
(a) A judgment will not be reversed because of the erroneous admission of evidence, where, at a subsequent stage of the trial, the evidence became relevant and admissible upon an issue later injected into the case.
3. Under the evidence, the court did not err in failing without request to instruct the jury that, if a witness swear wilfully and knowingly falsely, his testimony ought to be disregarded entirely, unless corroborated by circumstances or other unimpeached evidence.
4. The evidence authorized the verdict, and the court did not err in refusing a new trial.
Ernest Fuller was convicted of murder in the alleged killing of Harris Jones on July 18, 1942, by striking and wounding him with some instrument to the grand jury unknown. His motion for a new trial as amended was denied, and he excepted. A judgment, refusing a new trial after a former conviction, was reversed on the ground that certain evidence for the State had been erroneously admitted. Therefore this is the second appearance of the case. See Fuller v. State, 196 Ga 237, 26 S.E.2d 281.
The evidence on both trials showed that the deceased was riding in a truck of the defendant a little after midnight, on a paved road between Eatonton and Gray, Georgia. The truck had a cab, back of which was a body or platform open at the rear. Ennis Key, an employee of the defendant, was driving the truck, and sitting with him on the front seat were the defendant Fuller and a woman by the name of Elsie Simmons. Shelley Simmons, a son of Elsie Simmons, about twelve or thirteen years of age, and Harris Jones, the deceased, were riding on the platform. In some manner Jones came to his death on this trip a few miles from Gray, in which direction the parties were traveling. The main issues upon the trial were whether he was murdered, or whether he came to his death by falling from the truck while it was in motion, and if he was murdered, whether the defendant Fuller was a party to the crime. The State did not deny that the defendant Fuller was en route to a point near Gray, on otherwise legitimate business.
M. F. Adams, of Eatonton, and C. A. Giles, of Milledgeville, for plaintiff in error.
C. S. Baldwin, Sol. Gen., of Milledgeville, and T. Grady Head, Atty. Gen., and L. C. Groves, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.
The special grounds of the motion for a new trial will be referred to herein according to the numbering in the amendment to the motion.
1. We shall consider first the special ground numbered 4. The State's evidence, which on the disputed issues was entirely circumstantial, tended to show that the accused, Ennis Key, and Elsie Simmons formed a conspiracy to rob the deceased, and in the execution of such conspiracy killed him by beating. The State offered in evidence an indictment charging Fuller with robbery by force, with a plea of guilty thereon, which offense was alleged to have been committed upon the person of one Hubert Hawkins, about sixteen months before the alleged murder. The defendant objected on the following ground: 'In this case the Supreme Court has ruled that the foregoing evidence, on account of certain similarities, set out in the opinion, between the two cases, was properly admitted to show motive, plan, or scheme; but that the record of the indictment and plea, without more, did not show the points of similarity to which the Supreme Court had referred, and upon which the ruling was based,' the reference being to the decision by this court on the former appearance of the case, Fuller v. State, supra. 'Thereupon, the court called on the State to introduce evidence to meet this objection, and, after the witness, Hubert Hawkins, had testified in the hearing of the jury, overruled the defendant's objection and admitted the said documentary evidence.' Afterwards, still other evidence was introduced, showing circumstances of both of the alleged offenses.
The enumeration in the former decision of certain points of similarity between the two offenses as to the manner of commission was not a ruling that all such likenesses were necessary to render the indictment admissible. Upon the trial now under review, the evidence as a whole authorized a finding that the following points of similarity as to the manner of commission existed: (1) Both victims were intoxicated at the time of the assault; (2) the accused and the victim were in a motor vehicle at night; (3) the force...
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