Roberts v. State

• Decision Date: 20 December 1901
• Citation: 40 S.E. 297,114 Ga. 450
• Parties: ROBERTS v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

40 S.E. 297

114 Ga. 450

ROBERTS

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Dec. 20, 1901.

CRIMINAL LAW—INSTRUCTIONS—FAILURE TO CHARGE—ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR.

1. In a close and doubtful case it is error for the judge to refuse to give the jury, upon an appropriate written request submitted in due time, a charge applying to the facts, as shown by the evidence for the party making the request, the law applicable thereto; and this is true although the judge, in his charge, stated the abstract principle of law applicable to those facts.

2. The failure to charge a proposition of law applicable to the case cannot be taken advantage of by assigning error upon a charge which is abstractly correct.

3. When the charge embraces a section of the Code which contains a technical term of the law, the meaning of which is probably not understood by a person unlearned in the law, such term should be so defined as to convey to the jury a correct idea of its meaning.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from superior court, Jasper county; Jno. C. Hart, Judge.

Lucius Roberts was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, and brings error. Reversed.

Lane & Park and Greene F. Johnston, for plaintiff in error.

H. G. Lewis, Sol. Gen., for the State.

COBB, J. The accused was placed on trial, charged with the offense of murder, and was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. He excepted to a judgment of the court refusing to grant him a new trial.

1. Counsel for the accused in due time submitted to the trial judge, in writing, a request to charge, which, after stating that the Penal Code declares it to be justifiable homicide for one to kill another who manifestly endeavors by violence or surprise to commit a felony on the person of the slayer, concluded in the following language: "The court charges you that it is not essential, in order for such killing to be justifiable, that an actual assault should have been made upon the person of the slayer, or that a blow should be actually given or struck. Nor is it essential, for such killing to be justifiable, that the assailant be within striking distance or reach of the slayer, if the attack be apparently imminent. It is sufficient, in order to make this defense available, if it appears that the circumstances were sufficient to excite the fears of a reasonable man that a felony was about to be committed upon his person, and that the party killing acted under the influence of those fears, and not in a spirit of revenge." This request contains propositions of sound law. See Cumming v. State, 99 Ga. 662, 27 S. E. 177 (2); Johnson v. State, 105 Ga. 665, 31 S. E. 399; Stubbs v. State, 110 Ga. 917, 36 S. E. 200. An examination of the brief of evidence shows that the charge requested was peculiarly appropriate to the defense set up in the evidence introduced in behalf of the accused. The charge of the judge contains the substance of the section of the Code relating to justifiable homicide, and refers in a general way to the rule that when the circumstances are sufficient to excite the fears of a reasonable man that a felony is about to be committed on him, and he acts under the influence of those fears, and not in a spirit of revenge, the killing is justifiable; but nowhere in the charge is there any reference to the application of this general principle to the particular facts of the case. Under such circumstances, the judge should have given the charge requested by counsel for the accused, and his refusal to do so is in the present case error requiring the granting of a new trial. In Haynes v. State, 17 Ga. 465, 483, Judge Lumpkin said: "I give it as the result of thirty-four years' experience that ordinarily general charges, however abstractly true, are worse than useless, their effect being to misguide instead of directing the jury to a right finding; and the only instructions which are worth anything are such as enable the jury to apply the law to the precise case made by the proof." In the case of Slade v. Paschal, 67 Ga. 541, 545, Mr. Justice Speer said: "To charge an abstract principle of law is well enough, but when the request goes further, and seeks a charge that applies that principle to the facts of the case, if the proof justified its application, to refuse it is error. An abstract principle given may make but a slight impression on a jury, but when it is applied hypothetically to the facts it...