Johnson v. The State Of Ga.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1880
• Citation: Johnson v. The State Of Ga., 65 Ga. 94 (Ga. 1880)
• Parties: Johnson. v. The State of Georgia.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

65 Ga. 94

Johnson. v. The State of Georgia.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

(February Term, 1880.)

Criminal law. Continuance. Pleadings. Constitutional law. Jurors. Evidence. Res gestae. New trial. Before Judge Hillyer. Clayton Superior Court. September Term, 1879.

On September 18th, 1878, Mrs. Farmer was murdered and an assault committed on her daughter, Miss Farmer, which came near resulting in another murder. Neighbors discovered the Farmer house to be on fire, and on going thither and extinguishing the flames, Mrs. Farmer was found murdered. On search being made, Miss Farmer was found about a hundred yards distant from the house badly injured. She had beenstruck on the head with some hard instrument, and seemed partially, if not entirely, *unconscious. Several witnesses testified that they did not believe her conscious. She was taken up and carried to the house When found she was groaning. She was asked who hurt her, and said nobody. On the way to the house she several times ejaculated, "Oh, my poor head !" and "Oh, Julia I" It was some days later before full consciousness returned Julia Johnson was indicted both for the murder of Mrs Farmer and the assault with intent to murder Miss Farmer. On the trial of the murder case she was acquitted. When the other case was called, defendant moved for a continuance. The grounds of the motion were that she had relied entirely on R. S. Jefferies, Esq., who had represented her in the murder trial, to represent her also in th^: s, and that he had only a short time previously notified her that he could not do so, thus leaving her unprepared for her defense; also, that certain material witnesses were absent. As to what those witnesses would testify, the state made a counter-showing by proving what they testified on the murder trial. The court refused the continuance.

Defendant filed a plea of former acquittal, based on the verdict in the murder trial, claiming that the circumstances pointing to her as the perpetrator (nearness to the scene, possession of goods alleged to have been stolen from the house, etc.), applied alike to both cases. The court struck the plea, on motion of the state's counsel.

In making up the jury, the defendant's counsel proposed to ask the jurors questions other than those provided by the statute. These questions pertained to their presence at the coroner's inquest over Mrs. Farmer, or on the grand jury which found the indictment for murder, or at the trial thereof. Counsel stated that they had just been appointed to represent the defendant, and had no other means of testing the competency of the jurors. They, however, disclaimed any known ability to disprove the answers of the jurors to questions put to them on their voir dire. The court refused to allow the questions.

*The court allowed the expressions of Miss Farmer at the time when she was found to be proved.

The entire evidence is not necessary to be set out. The chief point of contest in the case was the identity of the defendant as the criminal. On this point Miss Farmer testified as follows:

Witness had come to the house and was in the front porch and her mother in the front door, when defendant came and said she wanted to get some cherry bark, and defendant and witness went together to the tree on the bluff to get the bark— defendant carrying the chop axe—chopped off the bark, andthey had just started back to the house, witness walking in front, when she was stricken, and remembered nothing more occurring then nor for a good while afterwards. She knows no one else was present but defendant and herself She had seen defendant twice before, once at the well sometime before, and again a day or two previous to the assault when defendant came to the house to get butter and eggs. On all these occasions defendant had worn a Scotch homespun dress. She had never heard defendant called by name; had been told she lived on Calhoun\'s place. Witness usually wore spectacles— did not that day. Negro women looked as much alike to her as a gang of black-birds. She had failed to identify defendant on the murder trial when asked to point her out among three or four negro women, defendant being then dressed differently from what she had been on the previous occasion. She didn\'t want to make the same mistake again; her brother and others had told her what kind of clothing was now worn by Julia. She had seen but one negro woman inside the bar on coming in that morning; knew defendant was to be tried, and knew in reason that was defendant. Had kept her eyes on her so as to know her. Defendant had changed hats. Witness\' memory had never been as good since she was wounded. She thought would never be again. She had a dizzy feeling in her head all the time. Learned on *regaining her consciousness that defendant had been arrested charged with the murder of her mother and injuries to herself. She positively remembered that defendant was the person with her and who struck her. She had lived at the same place fifty years Did not remember when the railroad was built, nor when the war began, nor when Atlanta was...