Pilcher v. State, 35440
| Decision Date | 21 January 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 35440,No. 2,35440,2 |
| Parties | PILCHER v. The STATE |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
(a) 'On a prosecution for a particular crime, evidence which in any manner shows or tends to show that the accused has committed another crime wholly distinct, independent, and separate from that for which he is on trial, even though it be a crime of the same sort, is irrelevant and inadmissible, unless there be shown some logical connection between the two from which it can be said that proof of the one tends to establish the other.' Bacon v. State, 209 Ga. 261, 71 S.E.2d 615.
(b) Likewise, an announcement by counsel in his statement of the case to the jury prior to the introduction of evidence that he intends to introduce matter which is prejudicial, and the introduction of which would authorize a reversal, is also error.
J. A. Pilcher was tried and convicted in the City Court of Macon on an accusation charging him with maintaining a lottery. His motion for new trial on the general grounds was later amended by the addition of 9 special grounds, and the denying of this motion is assigned as error.
Grady Gillon, W. O. Cooper, Macon, for plaintiff in error.
O. L. Long, Sol., Macon, for defendant in error.
introduction into this case of previous lottery transactions of the defendant. Error is assigned in special ground 2 on the failure of the court to declare a mistrial on motion of the defendant upon the following remark of the solicitor general in his opening argument:
In the 3rd and 4th special grounds error is assigned on the admission of testimony tending to prove that the defendant had been found with lottery paraphernalia in 1947 and 1949, dates 6 and 4 years previous to the transaction for which he was on trial and in no wise connected therewith. In special ground 5 error is assigned on the overruling of objections to testimony that in 1950 the defendant and one Billy Chapman were arrested while riding in the front seat of their automobile, and a lottery case was made against them based upon the discovery by the arresting officers of a sack containing 10 or 12 notebooks with yellow and onion-skin sheets of paper, which notebooks were completely blank. There was no evidence as to any proceeding on this occasion subsequent to the arrest. Billy Chapman, who figured in the 1950 transaction, was the same person identified by witnesses in the present case as a 'runner' who would pick up packages of tickets from other persons and bring them to the Pilcher residence.
In Bacon v. State, 209 Ga. 261, 71 S.E.2d 615, 616, the Supreme Court clearly restated the rule that, 'on a prosecution for a particular crime, evidence which in any manner shows or tends to show that the accused has committed another crime wholly distinct, independent, and separate from that for which he is on trial, even though it be a crime of the same sort, is irrelevant and inadmissible, unless there be shown some logical connection between the two from which it can be said that proof of the one tends to establish the other.' In Walker v. State, 86 Ga.App. 875, 877, 72 S.E.2d 774, 776, it is held: 'Where there has been a flagrant violation of this rule and where the fact that the defendant had previously been convicted of a similar offense has been erroneously placed before the jury in a manner such as here, the grant of a mistrial is proper and required.' See also Rosborough v. State, 209 Ga. 362, 72 S.E.2d 717, and cases cited in the dissenting opinion of Hodges v. State, 85 Ga.App. 617, 622, 70 S.E.2d 48, which dissent was approved in Bacon v. State, supra.
It follows from the above:
(a...
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Staggers v. State, 44746
...is sought to the general rule against admission of prior criminal offenses. Bacon v. State, 209 Ga. 261, 71 S.E.2d 615; Pilcher v. State, 91 Ga.App. 428, 85 S.E.2d 618; Bond v. State, 104 Ga.App. 627(4), 122 S.E.2d However, remoteness is also relative. Five years would be too long where the......
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