Robinson v. State

Decision Date19 December 1901
Citation114 Ga. 445,40 S.E. 253
PartiesROBINSON v. STATE.
CourtGeorgia Supreme Court

CRIMINAL LAW—INSTRUCTIONS—EVIDENCE— DECLARATIONS.

1. Mere failure to charge the law with respect to the impeachment of witnesses will not, in the absence of a request to charge upon the subject, be ground for a new trial.

2. On the trial of one of two persons jointly indicted, the declarations of the other that he alone committed the offense with which they are charged are not admissible in evidence in favor of the accused on trial.

3. There was sufficient evidence to warrant the verdict complained of, and the record discloses no reason for granting a new trial.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from superior court, Washington county; B. D. Evans, Judge.

John Robinson was convicted of murder, and brings error. Affirmed.

Evans & Evans, for plaintiff In error.

G. H. Howard, B. T. Rawlings, Sol. Gen., and J. M. Terrell, Atty. Gen., for the State.

FISH, J. John Robinson and Tom Hunter were jointly indicted for murder. Hunter disappeared, and Robinson, upon his trial, was found guilty. His motion for a new trial being overruled, he excepted.

1. On the trial the accused sought to impeach two of the state's witnesses by showing that their testimony given upon the committal trial was, as to material facts, contradictory to their testimony in the trial now under review. In the motion for a new trial error was alleged because the court wholly failed to charge the law relative to the impeachment of witnesses. In Smith v. Page, 72 Ga. 539, it was held: "The weight to be given the evidence of witnesses alleged to have been impeached is not one of the material questions in the case, without allusion to which the charge would be necessarily defective. It is only incidental or collateral to such material point, and therefore a failure to charge concerning it will not require a new trial, where the attention of the court has not been called to it, and no request to charge concerning it has been made." This rule has since been consistently followed. See Stevens v. Banking Co., 80 Ga. 19, 5 S. E. 253 (3); Cole v. Byrd, 83 Ga. 207, 9 S. E. 613 (3); Lewis v. State, 91 Ga. 168, 16 S. E. 986 (1); Jackson v. State, 91 Ga. 271, 18 S. E. 298 (4), 44 Am. St Rep. 22; Skinner v. State, 98 Ga. 127, 26 S. E. 475 (2); Bass v. State, 103 Ga. 228, 29 S. E. 966 (4); Waters v. State, 103 Ga. 571, 29 S. E. 966 (1); Huff v. State, 104 Ga. 521, 30 S. E. 808; Joiner v. State, 105 Ga. 646, 31 S. E. 566 (4); Freeman v. State, 112 Ga. 48, 37 S. E. 172 (1); Railroad Co. v. Thompson, 113 Ga 983, 39 S. E. 483; Downing v. State, 114 Ga. 31, 39 S. E. 927; Harris v. State, 114 Ga. 35, 39 S. E. 928; Levan v. State, 114 Ga. 258, 40 S. E. 252. Counsel for the plaintiff in error contend that this well-established rule of practice is not applicable to the case in hand, but that this case is controlled by the rule announced in Stafford v. State, 55 Ga. 591, which was followed in Plummer v. State, 111 Ga. 839, 36 S. E. 233, that: "Where a witness swore to a certain state of facts upon one trial, and to the contrary upon a second trial of the same case, admitting that his testimony first given was false, it was error in the court to fail to charge that, if a witness knowingly and willfully swears falsely in a material matter, his testimony should be rejected entirely, unless it be corroborated by the facts and circumstances of the case or other credible evidence." The facts of the case under consideration do not bring it within the scope of the principle announced in the two cases last above cited. In each of those cases a witness himself admitted that his testimony given upon a former trial was false, while in the present case the witnesses sought to be impeached stoutly denied that their testimony on the committal trial was different from what they testified in the last trial. This distinction seems to have been sufficiently material to call for the different rulings above referred to and cited.

2. Another ground of the motion for a new trial was that the court refused to permit a witness for the accused to testify to the effect that on the night of the...

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15 cases
  • Green v. State
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • September 7, 1978
    ..." Accord, Bryant v. State, 197 Ga. 641(9), 30 S.E.2d 259 (1944); Beach v. State, 138 Ga. 265, 75 S.E. 139 (1912); Robison v. State, 114 Ga. 445, 40 S.E. 253 (1901). This has been the law in Georgia for over one hundred years. Lowry v. State, 100 Ga. 574, 28 S.E. 419 (1897); Delk v. State, 9......
  • Watkins v. State
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • February 8, 1945
  • Bryant v. State
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • April 6, 1944
  • Bell v. State
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • July 9, 1971
    ...the exceptions to the rule against such evidence.' Hornbuckle v. State, 76 Ga.App. 111, 115, 45 S.E.2d 98, 101. See also Robison v. State, 114 Ga. 445, 447, 40 S.E. 253. The Cobb case shows that the only newly discovered evidence offered was an affidavit and, in a subsequent case by the sam......
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