Lamb v. Dillard

• Decision Date: 30 July 1894
• Citation: 21 S.E. 463,94 Ga. 206
• Parties: LAMB v. DILLARD et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

21 S.E. 463

94 Ga. 206

LAMB v. DILLARD et al.

Supreme Court of Georgia

July 30, 1894

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Under section 4721 of the Code it is the duty of the sheriff who makes an arrest under a magistrate's warrant from another county to carry the accused, with the warrant under which he was arrested, to the county in which the offense is alleged to have been committed, for examination before a judicial officer of that county. This he must do although the accused offers to waive examination, and tenders to the sheriff a bond, with security, approved by a magistrate of the county in which the arrest is made, and although the bond may in every respect be appropriate and sufficient were there any legal authority for its approval, tender, and acceptance. There being no such authority, the tender counts for nothing.

2. The mandate of the statute being imperative, the arresting officer must comply with it himself or by his deputy, and cannot legally detain the accused in jail until information of the arrest has been communicated to an officer of the county in which the offense is alleged to have been committed, and until that officer can reach the place of detention, and there receive the prisoner from the officer who made the arrest.

3. There was no error in excluding evidence offered by the plaintiff to show that the grand jury returned no bill touching the matter to which the warrant related; but it was error to admit evidence that the plaintiff had been indicted for another offense, and was at the time of trial a fugitive from the state, to avoid arrest.

Error from superior court, Rabun county; C.J. Wellborn, Judge.

Action for false imprisonment by William S. Lamb against A. L Dillard and another. Defendants had judgment, and plaintiff brings error. Reversed.

W. S. Paris and J. J. Kimsey, for plaintiff in error.

W. F. Findley, H. Thompson, F. M. Johnston, and W. C. Glenn, for defendants in error.

SIMMONS J.

1, 2. Lamb sued Dillard, the sheriff, and McConnell, deputy sheriff, of Rabun county, for false imprisonment. It appears from the evidence that the plaintiff was arrested by the defendants in Rabun county, under a warrant issued by a magistrate of Polk county, charging him with cheating and swindling, and that they placed him in the jail of Rabun county, where he was kept until an officer of Polk county came for him, and carried him to that county, seven days after the arrest; that he offered, when arrested, and subsequently while in jail, to waive a preliminary trial, and give bond, if the sheriff would carry him before some justice of the peace, and allow him to do so; but...