James v. State, 27483
| Decision Date | 04 January 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 27483,27483 |
| Citation | 195 S.E.2d 448,230 Ga. 29 |
| Parties | William Lee JAMES v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
J. Patrick Ward, Cairo, for appellant.
A. Wallace Cato, Dist. Atty., Bainbridge, Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Harold N. Hill, Jr., Executive Asst. Atty. Gen., Courtney Wilder Stanton, David L. G. King, Jr., Asst. Attys. Gen., Atlanta, for appellee.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court
The appellant was convicted in the trial court for the crime of murder, was sentenced to life imprisonment, and has appealed.
Two contentions are made here: (1) Appellant contends that the trial court committed error in admitting into evidence over his objection an incriminating statement made by him because before making the statement he had not been informed of the crime with which he was suspected of having committed, and (2) the incriminating statement was not admissible because he had not been properly warned of his Miranda rights.
The facts giving rise to the murder conviction were as follows: Appellant had had a dispute with one Jimmy Jackson; appellant went home to get his gun; after getting his gun appellant found Jackson and two other parties attempting to repair a parked car; appellant fired several times into the parked vehicle and left the scene not knowing that he had hit or killed anyone; one of the persons with Jackson was killed by the gunfire; Jackson notified law enforcement officers of the occurrence; law enforcement officers located the appellant in his automobile and asked for the gun which the appellant produced from underneath the car seat; appellant was advised of his 'Miranda rights' and was then asked by the law enforcement officers, 'do you want to talk to us?'; and appellant then admitted shooting at the Jackson vehicle.
Appellant's contention here is that since he did not know that he had killed anyone and since he was not informed that he was suspected of having committed the crime of murder, he could not possibly have been able to intelligently determine for himself whether he wanted to make a statement or whether he wanted a lawyer present before making a statement to law enforcement officers.
The officers asked appellant for his gun which he produced from his car, the officers then advised him of his 'Miranda rights', the officers then asked him if he wanted to talk with them, and he did. We hold that under such circumstances it was 'Miranda rights'. He contends that the him of the crime with which...
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