Long v. State, 8572.

• Decision Date: 10 August 1932
• Docket Number: No. 8572.,8572.
• Citation: 175 Ga. 274,165 S.E. 75
• Parties: LONG. v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

175 Ga. 274

165 S.E. 75

LONG.

v.STATE.

No. 8572.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Aug. 10, 1932.

Syllabus by Editorial Staff.

Error from Superior Court, Miller County; C. W. Worrill, Judge.

Guy Long was convicted of murder, and he brings error.

Affirmed.

Lucy Scott was killed about 8 o'clock at night at the house of her son, John Scott, by shot from a gun. On separate trial of Guy Long for the murder, the defendant was convicted. The sole ground of the amended motion for a new trial complains: "Because the court erred in not charging, even without any request to do so, on the law of circumstantial evidence, which is embodied in Penal Code, section 1010, which reads thus: 'To warrant a conviction on circumstantial evidence, the proved facts must not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt, but must exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused.' Movant assigns as error the failure of the court to charge the jury thus for the reason that the State relied wholly on circumstantial evidence to sustain the charge against him." John Scott, a witness for the state, testified that witness walked around his house, intending to go into his "cane patch" about 20 yards from the house; that while in the act of getting over the fence he discovered in the cane patch Jack Long, brother of Guy Long who lived about 15 miles from the scene, with whom witness had had several difficulties, one within the week; that Jack Long shot witness, striking him in the arm and side; that Jack Long continued to shoot at him, and at the same time witness heard other shots fired at him from in front of the house; that witness crawled to the house, where his mother met him at the front porch to help him in the house; that witness then saw Guy Long, the defendant, "walk from where he was * * * about two panels of the fence below the gate, " also Joe Brown Kirkland and Joe Albritton and another man whom witness did not know; that while witness' mother was trying to take him up the steps Guy Long shot his hand off the shoulder of his mother; that the above-mentioned unknown man also shot; that as they were trying to get in the house "Joe Albritton stepped over the fence from where he was standing in front of the gate" and shot witness' mother in the back of the head, killing her instantly. There was much cumulative circumstantial evidence.

P. Z. Geer and W. I. Geer, both of Colquitt, for plaintiff in error.

B. T. Castellow, Sol. Gen., of Cuthbert, Bond Almand,...