Pollard v. State
| Decision Date | 09 November 1905 |
| Citation | 52 S.E. 149,124 Ga. 100 |
| Parties | POLLARD v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
Where, in the trial of one charged with offense of assault with intent to murder, there was evidence from which the jury would be authorized to find mutual intent to fight, though no mutual blows were exchanged, it was not error to give in charge to the jury section 73 of the Penal Code.
And when upon that trial there was, beside the evidence tending to establish the existence of a mutual intent to fight, further testimony that the party who was shot started towards the accused, threatening at the same time to make him jump from the train, the court properly charged the law of voluntary manslaughter.
Inasmuch as death did not result from the assault with which the accused was charged, of course the jury should not have been charged, "If you believe, from the evidence in the case and the law given you in charge, that the defendant is guilty of the offense of murder, you should so find." But this instruction was so manifestly inapplicable to the facts in the case that the jury could neither have been misled nor influenced by the same, and the error committed was harmless.
In a ground of a motion for a new trial complaining that the court erred in charging section 73 of the Penal Code in such a way "as to confuse it with the other law of homicide and make it applicable to the same theory or state of facts, the theory of the defense being that he shot under the fears of a reasonable man," the movant should specify and point out how the law contained in said section is in the charge confused with the other law of homicide, and he should also point out or indicate with what other law of homicide the court's charge confused section 73; otherwise, the assignment of error is too general and indefinite to raise any question for decision.
Error from Superior Court, Richmond County; H. C. Hammond, Judge.
Henry Pollard was convicted of assault with intent to kill, and brings error. Affirmed.
Austin Branch and A. L. Franklin, for plaintiff in error.
J. S. Reynolds, Sol. Gen., and Jno. M. Graham, for defendant in error.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concurring.
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Smith v. State
...of both parties. Sanders v. State, 26 Ga. App. 475, 106 S. E. 314. It is not necessary that mutual blows be exchanged (Pollard v. State, 124 Ga. 100, 52 S. E. 149; Buchanan v. State, 153 Ga. 866, 113 S. E. 87), nor is it material who strikes the first blow or fires the first shot, nor is it......
- Pollard v. State