Stokes v. State
| Decision Date | 01 February 1917 |
| Docket Number | 7932. |
| Citation | 91 S.E. 271,19 Ga.App. 235 |
| Parties | STOKES v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
To sustain a conviction upon the testimony of an accomplice there must be corroborating circumstances which, in themselves and independently of the testimony of the accomplice, directly connect the defendant with the crime, or lead to the inference that he is guilty.
Error from Superior Court, Spalding County; W. E. H. Searcy, Jr. Judge.
Charlie Stokes was convicted of robbery, and he brings error. Reversed.
Cleveland & Goodrich, of Griffin, for plaintiff in error.
E. M Owen, Sol. Gen., of Zebulon, for the State.
Mattie Williams, Snet Banks, and Charlie Stokes were jointly indicted for the offense of robbery. The indictment alleged that the defendants did on a certain date, "with force and arms and unlawfully, wrongfully, fraudulently and violently, take and carry away from the person of T. N Harris, and without his consent, $35 in paper money and of the value of $35, the same consisting of two $10 bills, one $5 bill, one $2 bill, and eight $1 bills, said money being in the possession of and the property of the said T. N. Harris, contrary to the laws," etc. Mattie Williams entered a plea of guilty, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty against Banks and Stokes. Stokes made a motion for a new trial, based upon the general grounds, and also upon two special grounds.
On the trial the prosecutor, Harris, testified that when on his way home at night and while passing under some trees, which shaded the sidewalk close to an unoccupied hotel and rendered that locality dark, he was "held up" and robbed by two men and a woman; two $10 bills, one $5 bill, one $2 bill, and several $1 bills, aggregating in all $35, being taken from his person. He testified that each of the two men caught one of his arms and pulled it behind his back and held him securely, and the woman then took his pocketbook out of his pocket, removed the money, put the pocketbook back in his pocket, and ran away; that the men then "slung" him around, turned him loose, and ran, and when they ran he "turned around and looked at them the best" he could; that the men did not face him but came up on each side and jumped behind him and held his arms, one holding one arm and the other holding the other arm; that nothing was said to him before the money was taken, and not one word was spoken by any of the three persons; that he had never before met the two defendants on trial (Banks and Stokes), but the two men who engaged in the robbery would "compare with the size of these two men all right," and in his opinion they would "fill the bill all right," from what he saw of the robbers that night, and he was "satisfied" that these men were the parties. On cross-examination he repeated his testimony that neither of the two men on trial ever got in front of him, but that they stood behind, pulling his hands back, while the woman removed the money from his pocket, and further said that he recognized the woman as the defendant Mattie Williams, but as it was dark at the time of the robbery, and the men had their backs to him when they turned and ran, he could not swear positively that the defendants on trial were the men that committed the robbery; that he could not tell whether the men who held him were black or were mulattoes, as he did not see their faces, but "only saw their sizes"; that "any man can tell what he imagines, if he was in the dark," and that what he imagined was "all of it except what [he] could see" he "could not see anything but the size"; he "could not see whether they were black or yellow," he "could not see whether they had a mustache," as he never saw the faces of either of the men, but "only had a glimpse, though not enough to say positively they were the parties"; that he did not tell the sheriff that he "could not tell whether they were the two men or not," but he would not say positively now that they were the men, as his attention was then fixed on the woman more particularly, in order that he might know some of the parties if he saw them again, and he was looking at her for that purpose; that his sight was not good, as one eye was gone, and the sight of the other was poor.
Mattie Williams testified against the two defendants on trial, and said that they were in fact the two men who robbed the prosecutor, Harris, with her help, detailing the circumstances of the robbery very much as did the prosecutor in his evidence.
The sheriff, Hudson, testified that he arrested the defendants Stokes and Banks on Tuesday or Wednesday following the robbery; that he found Stokes at one Ola Lester's house, where both Stokes and Mattie Williams lived; that Banks lived about 100 or 150 yards from that house, at the house of a sister of Ola Lester; that he found Banks near one John Taylor's store, going down the street when he went to arrest Stokes, and that "he [referring to Banks and not to Stokes] ran and hid in a ditch and in some weeds and bushes; that it was about 50 or 75 yards from the house," where the witness found him; that Monday before the arrest, and after the prosecutor, Harris, had told him of the robbery, the defendant Stokes came to him and told him that the woman Mattie Williams was "at their house drunk, and that she had robbed an old man, two or three nights before that, and wanted [him] to go down and get her"; that Stokes came to his house and told him this freely and voluntarily, without any threats on his part; that Harris described the woman, and identified her after the arrest, but told him that he "could not identify the men"; that Charlie Stokes told him that he had pawned a suit of clothes to John Taylor, and went there Monday and got them, and in response to his inquiry said that the woman Ola Lester had furnished him the necessary money, $2 or $3, had given him a $10 bill, and got the change back, and this was the next morning after the robbery. It was admitted that John Taylor would testify, if present, that Charlie Stokes came to his store and got a $10 bill changed, but there was no testimony tending to identify the bill as one of the bills taken from the prosecutor.
There is perhaps no better settled principle of criminal law in this state than that elaborated in Childers v State, 52 Ga. 106, and adhered to without exception from that time to the present,...
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