Gregory v. The State Of Ga.

• Decision Date: 31 October 1887
• Citation: 80 Ga. 269
• Parties: Gregory. vs. The State of Georgia.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

80 Ga. 269

Gregory. vs. The State of Georgia.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

OCTOBER TERM, 1887.

Criminal law. Evidence. Verdict. New trial. Witness. Before Judge Brown. Cobb superior court. March term, 1887.

Reported in the decision.

J. E. Mozley, for plaintiff in error.

George F. Gober, solicitor-general and J. B. Alexander, for the State.

Bleckley, Chief Justice.

This is a case of considerable doubt; but our best opinion is, that the judgment should be affirmed. The conviction was chiefly upon tracks; and the peculiarity of the case is that the jury, on the voluntary exhibition of the accused, had an opportunity to see what sort of track he made, There was a box of sand brought before the jury, and he and those of his kindred who it was said made similar tracks, put their feet in the sand; and the jury saw what was the peculiarity of his tracks, and that peculiarity had been testified to by two or more witnesses, and the track had been traced from the house where the burglary had been committed into the woods along a road into the neighboring country. And after all this scrutiny the jury found a verdict of guilty, and the presiding judge was satisfied with that finding, and we are not prepared to say that there was error. And yet the case is not altogether satisfactory.

In addition to the tracks, there was some little confirmation by reason of a piece of wrapping paper that was found where the culprits, whoever they were, had stoppedin the road; and this wrapping paper corresponded in quality with the paper in which a deck of cards, found in the prisoner\'s pocket when he was arrested, was wrapped up. The correspondence was only in quality; although it appeared that there had been a piece torn off of the paper which wrapped the cards. It was not in evidence that the piece found in the road corresponded in its edge or border where torn off, with the shape of the missing piece from the wrapper of the cards; but the quality, the witnesses said, was the same in the two pieces. There was some evidence, called newly-discovered, which we think was immaterial. It consisted in part of the fact that the accused and his brother, who was also accused and acquitted, did not have any guns. The burglars had guns. The fact that they did not own or keep guns did not prevent them from having them on this occasion. Then the fact that the cards wrapped in the torn paper were handed to the accused by a certain person after the burglary was committed, would not...