Hargrove v. State

• Decision Date: 11 May 1906
• Parties: HARGROVE v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

54 S.E. 164

125 Ga. 270

HARGROVE v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia

May 11, 1906

Syllabus by the Court.

Neither the joinder of a witness in an indictment with the defendant nor a plea of guilty entered by the witness, necessarily makes him an accomplice with the defendant so as to require corroboration of the witness's testimony on the latter's trial. It is for the jury, from a consideration of the testimony of the witness, wherein he admits his presence at the scene of the crime at the time of its commission by his codefendant, but denies any participation therein by him, and the plea of guilty entered by the witness, as well as any other relevant circumstance, to determine whether the witness was an accomplice of the defendant on trial.

The court properly left it for the jury to decide, under the evidence, whether the co-defendant testifying was an accomplice; and the verdict may be upheld on the theory that the jury found that the witness was not an accomplice.

Even on the contrary assumption that the witness was an accomplice there was evidence from an extraneous source sufficient to corroborate the accomplice as to participation by the accused in the criminal act.

Error from Superior Court, Fulton County; L. S. Roan, Judge.

Jim Hargrove was convicted of murder, and brings error. Affirmed.

Jno. B Suttles and Frank L. Haralson, for plaintiff in error.

C. D Hill, Sol. Gen., and Jno. C. Hart, Atty. Gen., for the State.

EVANS J.

Jim Hargrove and Joe Iane were jointly indicted for the murder of Middleton P. Harwell. Lane entered a plea of guilty, and Hargrove was convicted by the jury of murder and recommended to mercy. A motion for a new trial was made by Hargrove on the ground that the verdict was contrary to law and the evidence. The motion was overruled, and the sole question presented by the bill of exceptions is whether or not the evidence was sufficient to sustain the verdict.

The deceased was a watchman in the freightyard of the Western & Atlantic Railroad Co. Just after dark another watchman heard two pistol shots, and immediately saw a negro running by the roundhouse; he was a yellow negro, and the witness though it was Joe Lane, but was not sure. The dead body of the deceased was found in the yard between the railroad tracks. There were cars on the track where his body lay. The deceased was killed by a gunshot wound, and the bullet which was extracted was a number 41 calibre. Joe Lane testified that Jim Hargrove shot and killed the deceased. His testimony was substantially as follows: He had known Hargrove about three years, and they had been at work together hauling baggage. They had also been associated together in committing a number of thefts, and on the night of the homicide went down to the railroad yards for the purpose of stealing. Jim said he was going down there to get him a tub of lard that he saw down there that day. They drove down an alley in the rear of a hardware store on Marietta street, and stopped under a bridge, where Jim left the witness in charge of the baggage wagon. This was about 6 o'clock p. m. It was raining, and was getting pretty dark. Jim was gone so long that the witness became uneasy, and went down in the railroad yard to see where he was, saw a man between some cars, and, as Jim jumped off the car in front, witness looked and "seen a pair of legs, and it was a white man. Jim straightened up, and walked down under the car, and came around the car, and met the white man on the main line, on the railroad track where he was. They both stood and looked at one another; and about that time Jim shot twice, and [the other man] ran back, and hallooed and kind of struck at him that way, and then ran back and hallooed and fell on his back." Jim "put out" towards the W. & A. roundhouse, and the witness went right back to the wagon the way he had come, not stopping to look at the deceased after he fell. Witness then went across town and met Jim in front of a candy factory, and they drove around Mitchell street, and came back to the depot, and got a load of trunks, and staid together till they went to the shed at quitting time, about 8 o'clock that night. They did not on that night (Saturday) visit Mattie Bryant, who claimed to be Jim's wife, but did meet at her house on Monday night. Witness first heard of Harwell's death on the morning after the homicide, about 6 o'clock, when Jim came to the house in which witness lived, and called him out on the porch, and read to him the newspaper account of the killing. Jim, after reading the paper, said "That man is dead I shot last night. Don't you never breathe it. If I hear it again, I will know you told it, because nobody knows about it but me and you. You were there, and I was there, and I ain't going to tell it, and if you ever tell it I will knows where it came from." Witness replied that he "wouldn't tell it." After the shooting, Jim pawned the pistol, tried to get witness to pawn it in his name, and tried to get Will Davis to pawn it in his own name, saying he could get more for it that way. Will would not do it, but did pawn the pistol for Jim in Jim's name. Witness had once, on the 30th of May, borrowed the pistol, but Jim would never afterwards let him have it. The pistol belonged to Jim, and he did the shooting with it. Witness knew, when they drove down to the railroad yards, that they were going there to steal, but they didn't get any chance to steal, and witness did not know anything about whether Jim was going to kill a man or not, and had nothing to do with the killing.

Certain other facts were shown which will be adverted to hereafter in connection with the discussion of the corroboration of the testimony of this witness. The accused offered certain evidence tending to account for his presence elsewhere, and also to show that Joe Lane had confessed to the killing and denied that the accused was present or in any way connected with the homicide. The accused also made a statement denying his guilt, accounting for his whereabouts at the time of the homicide, and asserting that Joe Lane had taken his pistol from the wagon the day before the killing and returned it to him just after the homicide, with an admission that he had killed the deceased. The trial judge, in his charge instructed the jury what was necessary to make one an...