Horton v. State
| Decision Date | 04 April 1900 |
| Citation | 35 S.E. 659,110 Ga. 739 |
| Parties | HORTON v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. It is not, in a trial for murder, competent to prove that, years before the homicide, there had been a difficulty or quarrel between the accused and the deceased, without showing that in consequence thereof, the former had continuously entertained hostile feelings towards the latter, or that the old grudge had something to do with the homicide; and, as a rule, the connecting evidence should begin with the killing and travel backwards to the original difficulty.
2. That the accused in a criminal trial was allowed, without objection, to prove a portion of a conversation which had taken place between himself and another, not within the res gestæ, does not entitle him, as matter of right, to introduce evidence of the entire conversation.
3. There being evidence warranting a conviction of voluntary manslaughter, there was no error in charging the jury upon this branch of the law of homicide.
4. If one violently and forcibly breaks into the dwelling house of another, and immediately assaults with a weapon an inmate thereof, the householder may, without more, regard the entry as burglarious, and may justifiably kill the assailant, if he does so in good faith, and under the honest belief that it is necessary to prevent the accomplishment of the unlawful purpose for which the entry was apparently made. If, on the other hand, one so breaks and enters another's dwelling and it is, after he does so, manifest that he does not meditate or intend violence, or the commission of any crime, it is not justifiable to kill him merely because of the unlawful entry of the house.
Error from superior court, Sumter county; Z. A. Littlejohn, Judge.
J. L. Horton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, and brings error. Reversed.
Blalock & Cobb, for plaintiff in error.
F. A. Hooper, Sol. Gen., for the State.
J. L. Horton was placed on trial in Sumter superior court under an indictment charging him with the murder of Thomas Bivins, alleged to have been committed on June 24, 1899. The accused was convicted of the offense of voluntary manslaughter, whereupon he filed his motion for a new trial, and he excepts to the judgment of the court below overruling this motion.
1. One ground in the motion for a new trial is that the court erred in admitting the evidence of a state's witness, over objection of defendant's counsel, in reference to a disturbance between defendant and deceased some six or seven years previous to the homicide. There was no testimony introduced or offered that tended in any wise to connect this disturbance testified to by the witness with the difficulty that resulted in the killing of the deceased. For this reason we think the court erred in admitting the testimony. The rule of law controlling this question is announced in the case of Pound v. State, 43 Ga. 89 (Syl., point 3), where it was held that: "The admission of acts of previous quarrels, of particular acts, to be admissible against the prisoner, must not be a separate, distinct, and independent act, but there must be some link of association; something which draws together the preceding and subsequent acts; something which gives color of cause and effect to the transaction, and sheds light upon the motive of the parties,--to render such particular act or acts admissible." See, also, Monroe v. State, 5 Ga. 86 (Syl., point 3).
2. On the trial of the case counsel for the accused was allowed, without objection, to prove by Joseph Lee Horton, a son of the accused, a portion of a conversation had between them shortly after the homicide. It seems that after the killing the accused left his home, and went to the house of his son, which was near, and reported to him, in substance, that he had killed the deceased. It was sought by defendant to introduce the entire conversation and statement of the accused to the son in regard to the killing. Upon objection of the state's counsel the court refused to admit such entire conversation. It seems that this conversation took place at a distance of about a half mile from where the killing occurred, and about an hour or more thereafter. This statement of the accused certainly then constituted no part of the res gestæ.
The state did not object to the accused proving by the witness that his father had reported to him the fact of the killing, but did object to his going further into the details of what occurred between them. The state, if it saw fit, upon cross-examination, had a right to bring out the remainder of the conversation; but certainly the details thereof could not be introduced by the accused in his own behalf.
3. Another ground in the motion for a new trial alleged error in the court charging the jury upon the subject of voluntary manslaughter, upon the ground that there was no evidence on which to predicate a charge upon this subject. The theory of the state seems to be that this killing occurred after the deceased had entered the house of defendant, and, in a drunken stupor, had fallen asleep upon the floor. There was no positive proof whatever to show that the killing occurred in this way. The state mainly relied upon facts and circumstances which, it was contended, showed that it was impossible for the fatal shot to have been fired while the deceased was in a standing position, and that he must have been lying upon the floor of the room where he was killed at the time he received the fatal shot. In behalf of the defense the daughter of the accused, who was in the room where the killing took place, swore positively that the deceased was killed after forcibly entering the house against the protest of her parents; that he had an open knife in his hand; and after seizing her mother, with the knife drawn, accompanying it with a threat that he intended to kill them all, in this emergency her father shot and killed the deceased. It is contended by counsel for the accused that under this testimony there is no possible chance for him to have been guilty of voluntary manslaughter, but that it was either murder or justifiable homicide; and, as accused was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, the charge on that subject has operated to his injury. After carefully going over the testimony, we do not find that it is of such a character as to compel the jury to accept one theory or the other. If they believed the only eyewitness to the killing, it was clearly a case of justifiable homicide. If they accepted, as shown beyond a reasonable doubt, the theory of the state, it was a clear case of murder. But there is evidence in the record from which the jury might have been authorized to discredit either theory. Testimony was introduced both by the prosecution and the defense to discredit the main witnesses on either side. It appears that prior to the killing the defendant and his son went in a buggy to a neighboring town, and on their return the deceased occupied a seat with them in the buggy, the testimony being conflicting as to whether deceased forced himself by getting into the buggy against the protest of defendant, or whether defendant invited him to ride. It seems that they were both drinking to some extent. There is considerable confusion in the testimony as to what occurred between them on this ride to defendant's home, but nothing to clearly indicate any decided malice or hatred of one to the other, or any purpose upon the part of either to commit a serious injury upon the other. After reaching the home of defendant, the deceased, accompanied by defendant's son, went to some neighboring houses. There was some testimony that he...
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