Harris v. State

• Decision Date: 29 November 1899
• Citation: 34 S.E. 583,109 Ga. 280
• Parties: HARRIS v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

34 S.E. 583

109 Ga. 280

HARRIS v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia

November 29, 1899

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Recitals of fact in a motion for a new trial filed in a criminal case, relating to occurrences alleged to have taken place in the presence of the judge while the trial was in progress, though verified by the affidavit of movant's counsel and admitted to be true by the solicitor general cannot be taken as true in this court, when it affirmatively appears that the trial judge expressly declined to certify the same. It follows that points made in a motion for a new trial, and which depend upon such recitals, are not properly here for determination.

2. Words spoken by a person, some of them within an hour and others within 24 hours of the time when he took the life of another, capable of being understood as conveying a threat to take the life of some one, are admissible in evidence on the trial of the person speaking them for murder.

3. The evidence warranted the verdict, and it does not appear that any error was committed in denying a new trial.

Error from superior court, Floyd county; W. M. Henry, Judge.

Bud Harris was convicted of murder, and brings error. Affirmed.

George A. H. Harris & Son, for plaintiff in error.

Moses Wright, Sol. Gen., J. M. Terrell, Atty. Gen., and M. B Eubanks, for the State.

COBB J.

Bud Harris was put upon trial upon an indictment charging him with the offense of murder. Having been convicted, he made a motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and he excepted.

1. In two grounds of the motion complaint is made that the solicitor general had been permitted by the judge to use language in his concluding argument which was improper, and prejudicial to the accused. Another ground complains that the judge, though requested to do so, declined to charge the jury in such a way as to do away with the injurious effect of the language complained of. That the solicitor general used the language attributed to him is alleged in an affidavit of one of the counsel for the accused, and was admitted by the solicitor general himself. The judge declined to certify these grounds of the motion, and appended a note stating, in effect, that the language alleged to be objectionable must have been used by the solicitor general while he was preparing his charge to the jury, and that he neither heard the same nor had any recollection of such language having been used; that his attention was not called to the language at the time the same was used, nor...