Pritchard v. State
| Decision Date | 20 October 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 62690,62690 |
| Citation | 160 Ga.App. 105,286 S.E.2d 338 |
| Parties | PRITCHARD v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Elsie Higgs Griner, Nashville, for appellant.
Vickers Neugent, Dist. Atty., Charles R. Reddick, Lew S. Barrow, Asst. Dist. Attys., for appellee.
The defendant was indicted and convicted of criminal trespass and livestock theft.
1. A motion to suppress evidence of meat found in the defendant's home shortly after two of the prosecutor's cows were slaughtered was made on the ground that the affidavit in support of the search warrant was insufficient on its face to show probable cause for issuance of the warrant. The warrant states in part, on the affidavit of a deputy sheriff of Atkinson County dated November 20, 1980, that the cows were killed and butchered on the owner's property on November 9; The issuing magistrate testified on the hearing of the motion to suppress that the search warrant was issued based on the sworn statement, oral testimony, 14 packages of beef and a set of wire cutters. He remembered some of the testimony stated that certain facts (apparently including the statement of a witness who had seen a red truck and camper at the livestock pen on the night of the theft) had been given to the affiant by an informer identified as being "reliable" and that he had talked with him. The informer is not otherwise identified; whether or not he was the same person as the witness mentioned in the affidavit is unknown. The magistrate testified forthrightly that he did not remember all the exact details of the oral testimony. Further, we do not have all of the testimony offered at the hearing of the motion to suppress the search warrant, but only the second half, offered after a continuance and during a recess in the trial itself. From the testimony on the trial it is obvious that the officer did in fact have sufficient relevant and admissible factual information on the night of November 19 to constitute probable cause for obtention of the warrant. We cannot say that this was not placed before the magistrate under the record here. The magistrate's testimony demands the conclusion that he found the facts presented to him to constitute probable cause; that he made this decision himself and did not simply rely on the conclusion reached by the affiant. See Reid v. State, 129 Ga.App. 660(2), 200 S.E.2d 456 (1973). He could properly consider oral testimony, and the affidavit and oral testimony must be construed together in determining probable cause. Fowler v. State, 128 Ga.App. 501, 197 S.E.2d 502 (1973). Where we do not have a complete transcript of the motion to suppress we cannot say that the testimony heard by the magistrate was legally insufficient to sustain his probable cause decision.
2. While the testimony as to coercion was in dispute at the Jackson-Denno hearing, that of the state was ample to establish that the confession given by the defendant (which he did not deny) some three or four hours after his arrest and after he had more than once received the usual Miranda warning was in fact given and was in fact voluntary.
3. The appellant complains that statements of the co-defendant Heflin were erroneously admitted in evidence, since they were made after the conspiracy ended and not in the presence of the appellant, in contravention of Code § 38-414. The post-arrest confession of a co-conspirator who does not testify at the trial, not made in the presence of the defendant, is inadmissible. Crowder v. State, 237 Ga. 141, 150, 227 S.E.2d 230 (1976). This is because such a confession is a "desertion" by the co-conspirator and thus operates to terminate the conspiracy. However, the confession of Heflin, if one was made, was never attempted to be offered in evidence. Heflin himself did not testify; he had escaped from custody after indictment but prior to trial. The language objected to was, first, a statement by Heflin when asked, after a search of his house had discovered the meat lodged in his freezer, that he had bought it from his brother in Griffin. When told this could be checked out by radio "he...
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Heath v. State
...either of these two appellants. OCGA § 24-4-9; Dorsey v. State, 204 Ga. 345, 352(3), 49 S.E.2d 886 (1948); Pritchard v. State, 160 Ga.App. 105, 108(4), 286 S.E.2d 338 (1981); McGee v. State, 172 Ga.App. 208, 209(2), 322 S.E.2d 500 (1984); Brown v. State, 177 Ga.App. 284, 288(4), 339 S.E.2d ......
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Morgan v. State
...v. State, 245 Ga. 616(1), 266 S.E.2d 218 (1980); Contreras v. State, 242 Ga. 369(3), 249 S.E.2d 56 (1978); Pritchard v. State, 160 Ga.App. 105(4), 286 S.E.2d 338 (1981). "It is customary to permit attorneys to comment upon the absence of witnesses, or their non-production, when they are sho......
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Pardo v. State
...a witness whom he has directly or indirectly claimed could support in whole or in part the theory of his defense. Pritchard v. State, 160 Ga.App. 105, 107(4), 286 S.E.2d 338; Workman v. State, 137 Ga.App. 746, 747(3), 224 S.E.2d 757; see Johnson v. State, 202 Ga.App. 590(1), 415 S.E.2d 189 ......
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McGee v. State, 68277
...failure to produce evidence, the jury may be apprised of facts from which it arrives at the same conclusion. Pritchard v. State, 160 Ga.App. 105(4), 286 S.E.2d 338 (1981). Appellant's proposed instruction would infringe upon the jury's ability to draw conclusions from the facts presented to......