Green v. State, 33067

• Decision Date: 19 September 1950
• Docket Number: No. 2,No. 33067,33067,2
• Citation: 82 Ga.App. 402,61 S.E.2d 291
• Parties: GREEN v. STATE
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 291

61 S.E.2d 291

82 Ga.App. 402

GREEN v. STATE.

No. 33067.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Sept. 19, 1950.

Syllabus by the Court

The evidence authorized the verdict finding the defendant guilty of an assault with intent to rape, and there being no merit in either of the special grounds considered, the court did not err in overruling the motion for a new trial.

The defendant, Leslie Green, was charged with assault with intent to rape in that he 'did feloniously make an assault * * * did unlawfully beat * * * and did forcibly and against her will * * * make an attempt to ravish and carnally know * * * [the prosecutrix].' Upon the trial of the case, the defendant was convicted and he was sentenced to serve a minimum of two years and a maximum of four years in the penitentiary. His motion for a new trial, based upon the usual general grounds, and three special grounds was overruled and he excepted.

Aaron Kravitch, Savannah, for plaintiff in error.

Andrew J. Ryan, Jr., Sol. Gen., Savannah, for defendant in error.

MacINTYRE, Presiding Judge.

1. The only evidence bearing directly upon the alleged assault with intent to rape was that given by the prosecutrix who testified: 'I am ten years old; I go to school; I do not go to Sunday School; I go to church sometimes; I know what it means to tell the truth; when you hold up your hand you are supposed to tell the truth; I don't know what happens to people who do not tell the truth. (Examination by the court) I know you go to jail if you do not tell the truth. I know that man Leslie Green there; my mother and father know him; my house is at 519 Guerard Street, in Savannah, Chatham County, State of Georgia; Leslie Green came to my house one night last October, around 9:30, and asked for my mamma and papa; my mother was then to his shop on Walker Lane, I think; I don't know how far that is from my house; I don't know where my daddy was; he was not at home when Leslie Green came there; when Green first came in he asked if my mamma was home and I told him no; he asked if my daddy was at home and I told him no sir; at that time I was in the bed and he was standing in the front room; the bed was right by the front room and I was talking to him from the bed; he asked me if he told me something I would tell nobody; I told him I didn't understand; I told him I wasn't studying him; then he came in the bed and unbuttoned his pants; he had taken the lamp out of the room and put it in the dining room; then he come in there and tried to make me turn over; I was on my stomach; I hollered and he hit me in my back; he had off his pants on the side of the bed; that's when I hollered; then Pearley Mae walked in and caught him with his pants off; Pearley Mae Jones was going with him; he walked out of the door and she said she didn't want anything else to do with him; he called her and she went down the street, and then he went around the corner; Pearley Mae told her cousin and her cousin told Mamma and Mamma came on home; I told my mother what had happened; I remember being in your office [the solicitor's] this morning and Pearley Mae said she didn't want anything more to do with him; Pearley Mae didn't say anything to that, but she walked on out; Pearley Mae said this morning he was in the dining room asking me where my daddy was when she came in; she told you she didn't catch him with his pants down; she is wrong; she did come in and catch him.' On cross-examination the prosecutrix testified: 'Pearley Mae is my cousin; Pearley Mae's little girl was in the same room with me that night; she was in bed with me then; also in bed with me were my three sisters; one of my sisters is three years old, one is a year and five months old, and the other one is five years old; Pearley Mae's little girl is eight years old; her name is Shirley Ann Thomas; Shirley [Pearley?] Mae said she thought Mamma was asleep and she came in to scare her; when she came in he [the defendant] jumped up out of the bed and started pulling on his pants; Pearley Mae was working that day and she would leave her little girl with us while she worked; she came to get her little girl and take her home.' In her testimony, Lizzie Williams, the mother of the prosecutrix, related that Cora Belle Jones told her what Pearley Mae had told Cora Belle and that she, the mother, had gone home and the prosecutrix complained that the defendant had been there 'bothering her,' and she called the police. The policeman who had taken the defendant in charge after his arrest stated that he took the defendant to the home of the prosecutrix and she made the complaint to him. In his statement to the jury the...