McCord v. State
| Decision Date | 07 January 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 38042,38042 |
| Citation | 248 Ga. 765,285 S.E.2d 724 |
| Parties | Albert C. McCORD v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
William C. Tinsley, II, Tinsley & Emerson, Douglasville, for Albert C. mCcord.
W. A. Foster, III, Dist. Atty., Douglasville, for The State.
Albert C. McCord was convicted by a jury of the offense of child molestation and sentenced to the penitentiary. He appeals to this Court, challenging the constitutionality of Code Ann. § 26-2019, and setting forth other enumerations of error.
The statute in question provides: "A person commits child molestation when he does any immoral or indecent act to or in the presence of or with any child under the age of 14 years with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of either the child or the person." Ga.L.1968, pp. 1249, 1302; Code Ann. § 26-2019. McCord contends that the term "any immoral or indecent act" is so vague and indefinite that it fails to give to a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of forbidden conduct.
We disagree. City of Atlanta v. Southern Railway Co., 213 Ga. 736, 738, 101 S.E.2d 707 (1958). The inclusion in a criminal statute of the term "indecent condition or act" has withstood prior assault. Scarborough v. State, 231 Ga. 7, 200 S.E.2d 115 (1973). The phrase "any immoral or indecent act" in conjunction with the requisite element of the offense that the act be committed "with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of either the child or the person" is sufficiently definite. Anderson v. Little & Davenport Funeral Home, Inc., 242 Ga. 751, 753, 251 S.E.2d 250 (1978).
McCord next contends that the State failed to prove venue and failed to prove that the offense was committed within four years of the return of the indictment. Venue may be proved by circumstantial evidence. Loftin v. State, 230 Ga. 92, 94, 195 S.E.2d 402 (1973). From the testimony that McCord's barn was in Douglas County, and that the acts complained of took place there, the jury reasonably could infer venue in Douglas County. Similarly, while the evidence does not contain a precise or an approximate date of the event, it showed that McCord's barn was built in 1977, which is of necessity within four years of the return of the indictment on November 18, 1980. These enumerations are without merit.
Finally, McCord contends that the trial court erred in refusing to give his requested charge that simple battery is a lesser included offense of...
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Madison v. State
...we note that it is not clear whether simple battery may ever be a lesser included offense of child molestation. See McCord v. State, 248 Ga. 765, 766, 285 S.E.2d 724 (1982) ; Brooks v. State, 197 Ga.App. 194(1), 397 S.E.2d 622 (1990). If “two offenses have entirely different elements and re......
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Taylor v. State
...496, 509(5), 246 S.E.2d 642 (1978). Accord Jones v. State, 245 Ga. 592, 596(2), 266 S.E.2d 201 (1980). Here as in McCord v. State, 248 Ga. 765, 766, 285 S.E.2d 724 (1982), the showing that the Jenkins residence was in Bacon County and that the acts complained of occurred there would enable ......
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Roemhild v. State
...in the foregoing section is too vague to be understood by ordinary persons. We have recently treated this issue in McCord v. State, 248 Ga. 765, 766, 285 S.E.2d 724 (1982), relying therein upon well-established principles of interpretation. " 'It is a general principle of statutory law that......
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Davidson v. State, A98A0738.
...to prohibit certain conduct, and (2) lacks definite and explicit standards to guide its enforcement[.]" However, in McCord v. State, 248 Ga. 765, 766, 285 S.E.2d 724 (1982), the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld the constitutionality of the statute. The Supreme Court determined that "[t]he ph......