Jordan v. State, (No. 17898.)

• Decision Date: 12 April 1927
• Docket Number: (No. 17898.)
• Citation: 137 S.E. 798,36 Ga.App. 648
• Parties: JORDAN. v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

36 Ga.App. 648

137 S.E. 798

JORDAN.

v.STATE.

(No. 17898.)

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 1.

April 12, 1927.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from Superior Court, Bryan County; W. W. Sheppard, Judge.

Robert Jordan was convicted of manufacturing whisky, and he brings error. Affirmed.

Henry O. Farr, of Brunswick, for plaintiff in error.

J. Saxton Daniel, Sol. Gen., of Claxton, and J. T. Grice, Sol. Gen., of Glennville, for the State.

BLOODWORTH, J. [1, 2] A jury, which tried a case in which the accused was charged with "manufacturing whisky, " returned a verdict as follows:

"We, the jury, find the defendant guilty as charged, and fix a maximum penalty of one year and a minimum penalty of one and one-half years, and recommend that he be punished as for a misdemeanor."

When this verdict was published, the presiding judge told the jury that they would have to go back and rewrite their verdict, and again instructed them as to the form of the verdict. Thereupon counsel for the plaintiff in error made a motion for a mistrial, upon the ground that this verdict was a nullity, was not "susceptible to amendment, " did not fix a minimum and maximum penalty as provided by law, and that the jury "was instructed and advised by the clerk of said court as to the form of their verdict." The court did not err in failing to declare a mistrial. In overruling the motion for a mistrial, the court said:

"I have already instructed them and then reinstructed them (the jury) as to what the legal form was, and, the verdict not being in proper form, instructed them, that they must return to their room and prepare the verdict in legal form, and that the clerk here having a paper on which there was a legal form, with the permission of the court he submitted that to the jury, and at the direction of the court, as being a proper and legal form."

The record further shows that the form furnished the jury by the clerk at the direction of the court left a blank space for the period of service of the defendant to be entered by the jury. "Verdicts are to have a reasonable intendment, and are to receive a reasonable construction, and are not to be avoided unless from necessity." Penal Code 1910, § 1059. Who could read the verdict as originally rendered without reaching the conclusion that the jury intended to fix the minimum term as one year and the maximum as one and one-half years? Is not this a "reasonable construction?" Moreover, when a judgment is ambiguous, it "may be construed in...