Owen v. State
| Decision Date | 05 September 1947 |
| Docket Number | 15926. |
| Citation | 44 S.E.2d 266,202 Ga. 616 |
| Parties | OWEN v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. The evidence authorized the verdict.
2, 3. The charges of the court as set forth in the corresponding divisions of the opinion were not error.
4. Where a homicide is committed by an accused while in the prosecution of a crime punishable by confinement in the penitentiary, the law of involuntary manslaughter is not involved.
Jim Owen was convicted of the murder of Tommie Rogers and sentenced to electrocution. The evidence authorized the jury to find that there was bad feeling on the part of the accused toward the deceased on account of a woman with whom the accused was living and that at about one o'clock a. m the accused arrived with a shotgun, broke open the door of the home of the deceased, entered the bedroom where the deceased and his wife were sleeping, with the intent to shoot the deceased, and shot him during a scuffle over the shotgun between the deceased, his wife, and the accused which scuffle took place immediately after the deceased and his wife were awakened by the entry of the accused into their bedroom. To the overruling of the amended motion for new trial, the accused excepted.
Cody U Watson, of Thomson, for plaintiff in error.
J. Cecil Davis, Sol. Gen., of Warrenton, Eugene Cook, Atty. Gen., and Margaret Hartson, of Atlanta, for defendant in error.
ATKINSON, Justice (after stating the foregoing facts).
1. The evidence authorized the verdict.
2. Error is alleged upon the following portion of the charge: 'The defendant enters upon the trial of the case with the presumption of innocence in his favor, and that presemption remains with him throughout the trial and until and unless the State shall overcome it and remove it by the introduction of testimony in your presence and hearing sufficient to convince your minds beyond a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the accused.' It is contended that the court should have said, 'guilt of the crime alleged,' instead of 'guilt of the accused.' The portion of the charge here complained of is in language almost identical with that in Cady v. State, 198 Ga. 99, 114(16), 31 S.E.2d 38, and is not subject to the criticism urged.
3. It was not error for the court to charge as follows: The foregoing is substantially in the language of the Code, § 38-110.
4. It is strenuously insisted by the attorney for the accused that the court erred in failing to charge, without request, the Code, § 26-1009, defining the law of involuntary manslaughter. From a careful search of the testimony produced, we find nothing therein that would inject the law of involuntary manslaughter. The evidence showed that the...
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Norrell v. State, 42820
...in the commission of a crime punishable by confinement in the penitentiary, involuntary manslaughter is not involved. Owen v. State, 202 Ga. 616, 618, 44 S.E.2d 266. In Stallings v. State, 100 Ga.App. 327(1), 111 S.E.2d 109, cert. den. 100 Ga.App. 864, the evidence showed that he defendant ......
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Godbee v. State, 60287
...charge was an accurate instruction on "reasonable doubt," substantially in the language of Code Ann. § 38-110. Owen v. State, 202 Ga. 616, 617(3), 44 S.E.2d 266 (1947); Daniel v. State, 61 Ga.App. 663, 664(1), 7 S.E.2d 204 (1940). "The language of the instruction is not reasonably susceptib......
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