Reeves v. State
| Decision Date | 09 September 1943 |
| Docket Number | 14525. |
| Citation | 27 S.E.2d 375,196 Ga. 604 |
| Parties | REEVES v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied Oct. 8, 1943.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. The verdict of guilty was authorized by testimony for the State that the defendant called the deceased to the front door of his home and shot him without justification. While the defendant in his statement to the jury related matters such as might have authorized them to find that, by reason of previous head injuries, his mind at the time of the homicide was a blank and unable to distinguish between right and wrong, it was the prerogative of the jury to accept or reject these statements, which were unsupported by any testimony and which were negatived both by the legal presumption of sanity, and by testimony from several witnesses for the State, that just before and after the shooting, his words and acts were rational and he seemed to be fully aware of what he was about to do or had done. See Code, § 38-415; Brown v. State, 148 Ga. 264, 265, 96 S.E 435; Rozier v. State, 185 Ga. 317, 319, 195 S.E 172, and cit.; Willis v. State, 63 Ga.App. 262, 10 S.E.2d 763, and cit.
2. It was not erroneous or prejudicial to the defendant to charge to the jury the language of the Code, § 26-303, as to criminal responsibility in cases of lunatics or persons insane, with or without lucid intervals, in view of the contention of the defendant in his statement to the jury that at the time of the homicide and at previous times his mind was 'a blank;' especially in view of the judge's note to this ground, that the instruction was given as it was 'read to the court by counsel for the defendant in the beginning of the argument to the jury.'
3. For reasons stated in the opinion, the charge on the subject of delusional insanity was not erroneous on the grounds assigned, or on any ground of which the defendant can complain.
C. B. Reeves was found guilty, without a recommendation, of the murder of E. A. Barnett, and a new trial was refused. The defendant excepted on the general grounds, and on special grounds relating to charges on the law of insanity.
There was testimony for the State that the defendant, chief of police at Arlington, drove with his wife in his automobile from their home to Leary, where he blew his horn in front of the home where the deceased and the latter's wife had been asleep in the early morning, and called for the deceased to come out, that he wanted to see the deceased. When the deceased walked off the porch to the car and greeted the defendant. 'Hello, Clem,' the defendant said, 'I'm going to kill you,' and shot once with a pistol. After the deceased said, and the wife of the deceased pleaded for the defendant not to kill him, the defendant fired again several times, and remained in his car while the deceased was on the ground. There were wounds in the head and chest of the deceased, from which he died in a few minutes. When the defendant drove his car up to the home of the deceased, the wife of the defendant was seen 'twisting and turning,' and after the shooting she jumped out of the car, barefooted, and ran into the house of a neighbor of the deceased.
As to the mental condition of the defendant, the sheriff, at Morgan seven miles distant from the place of the homicide, testified that after he had been informed of the homicide the defendant drove up to the sheriff's house with a pistol in hand, from which he took out four empty shells; that when the sheriff asked, 'Clem why did you shoot Ed Barnett?' the defendant replied, 'Have I killed him?' and, when informed that the sheriff had been told this by telephone, said, 'I have been wanting him for twenty years,' and made a similar statement to two other persons; that he asked to go into the sheriff's house and wash blood from his hands, and then said he was ready to go; that he asked the sheriff to call an attorney, who was one of defendant's counsel in the trial, and this attorney came to the jail; that the defendant would not eat breakfast brought to him, but drank two cups of coffee; that later in the day he told the sheriff at the jail that on 'the day of [defendant's] wedding,' the deceased and two others 'came to the wedding and brought some rice and onions and sardines, and that they were very lively for some cause or other, but that he didn't think anything about it, and that after the wedding they threw some rice on him, but there were no onions or other stuff thrown;' and the defendant further said 'after he had been married a few days, he felt there was something wrong with his wife, and that was what caused his grudge at' the deceased; that 'he had started to Leary about ten years ago to kill [the deceased], * * * but that they got in the creek and the car drowned out, and they never did get there;' and that 'if he had gotten [the deceased], he was satisfied, and they could do whatever they wanted to do with him.'
The mother of the defendant's wife testified that after the shooting he came to the mother's house, not far from the home of the deceased, and asked if his wife was at the mother's house, and, when told that she was not there and that some one had shot the deceased, told her that 'he did it and walked off,' then drove away in his car in the direction of Morgan.
These witnesses testified that when they saw the defendant after the homicide he appeared to be calm, steady and rational. When one witness asked, 'What in the world was the matter?' the defendant replied, 'Oh, just a little trouble;' and when told, 'You ought not to have killed' the deceased, he asked 'Did I kill him?' and when informed that he had done so, said, 'Okay, that is what I meant to do.' Another witness testified to like effect. One witness said that he had greeted the defendant in Leary just before the shooting, and was greeted with a reply calling his name, and testified that 'there did not seem to be anything irrational about his conduct.'
The defendant offered no testimony. Essential portions of his statement to the jury are as follows: That he was then forty-three years old; that at the age of five he fell from a pony, knocked his head on the ground, lay unconscious for a day or two, and afterwards 'things that happened in the past were not clear to me, it would take several days to come back bit by bit, and I eventually got my past life together;' that at about the age of eleven he was riding in a buggy, the horses became frightened and threw the buggy against a tree; that they carried him to a doctor, and 'the next day I didn't remember a thing that happened;' that at the age of sixteen, after he enlisted in the army in 1916, he 'commenced suffering from headaches, * * * and it got worse and worse,' and he became unconscious; that a doctor in Macon operated on him 'for double mastoids,' after which he returned to his company in the army; that he went to France with the Rainhow Division, where there was severe fighting and heavy casualties, and one morning 'was blown up two or three times;' that later while 'sitting at the edge of a fox hole, a German shell burst overhead, and shrapnel hit me right there [indicating], and when I came to my nose was bleeding and my ears were bleeding;' that he 'was sent to the hospital, and soon returned to duty;' that in the army of occupation in Germany he 'began to have those headaches again;' that after the armistice, when he was sent back to the United States, 'they examined me and gave me my discharge and gave me a disability rating on account of this head trouble;' that when he came home, while working at the depot where buggies were being unloaded, he was thrown by a buggy 'off the platform on the track, and the rail struck me just above the ear there, and * * * the agent, I afterwards learned, carried me home;' that the doctor said there was 'a concussion,' and that it was dangerous to get up, as he was 'liable to have a stroke;' that Afterwards, the defendant said, he joined the Merchant Marines, but 'continused having headaches' while on a ship, and obtained his discharge in about six weeks, returned home, and started to farming. When examined by Government order in 1921, 'they told me I had t.b. started in both lungs, and they sent me to Johnson City, Tennessee,' where he remained until discharged in April, 1922. As to his wife, Thelma, he said that he started going with her before he worked for the railroad; that during such work they became engaged, and on November 9 were married at Leary. 'We were out on the porch,' His first child, he said, was born in August; and when this child where the defendant was taking training at the University, 'and in a day or two she told me she did something that possibly I would not like, and I said, 'What was it?' and she said, 'While I was at home [her father] got Ed Barnett [the deceased] to take me over to my mother's,' and I said,...
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...be confusing or misleading to a jury, a new trial will be required. Davis v. State, 190 Ga. 100(4), 8 S.E.2d 394." Reeves v. State, 196 Ga. 604, 614, 27 S.E.2d 375, 381; Roberson v. State, 57 Ga.App. 495(1), 195 S.E. 881. "Harmful error results when an inapplicable instruction might reasona......
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...Supreme Court in Reeves v. State, 196 Ga. 604(2), 27 S.E.2d 375, held that it was not error to charge the provisions of that section. In the Reeves case defendant contended in his statement that at the time of the homicide and at previous times his mind was a blank. In the instant case the ......
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