Swint v. State
| Decision Date | 19 March 1948 |
| Docket Number | 16146. |
| Citation | 47 S.E.2d 65,203 Ga. 430 |
| Parties | SWINT v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Cora Lee Swint was convicted, with a recommendation of mercy, of the murder of Mary Jackson. The exception here is to the judgment overruling the motion for new trial, as amended.
Briefly stated, the evidence introduced by the State made out substantially the following case: The homicide occurred at the home of Sally Bennett on Sunday afternoon, April 14 1946, around 6 o'clock. Earlier that afternoon the defendant left the home of Catherine Jackson with whom she was living, stating to her that she was going after some dirt. She had a paring knife, belonging to Catherine Jackson, in the front pocket of her dress, with the blade sticking up. There was evidence that the defendant and Sally Bennett went to the home of the deceased three different times during the day; however, the defendant stated that she was there only one time. The deceased was stabbed under the left breast, and as a result there was a considerable loss of blood and subsequent death. The arresting officer testified that he made a search for the defendant and found her at her home. He asked her for the knife with which she killed the deceased, and she replied that it was in the house, and together with the officers went into the house and got it off a dresser. The defendant stated to the officers at that time that she and the deceased were playing over the back of a bed and the knife accidentally 'went in her;' that the knife stayed in her pocket. There was evidence that there was no bed in the room referred to immediately after the homicide.
The defendant, in her statement to the jury, stated:
D. A. Bragg and Chas. G. Reynolds, both of Millen, for plaintiff in error.
Fred T. Lanier, Sol. Gen., of Statesboro, Eugene Cook, Atty. Gen., and Wright Lipford, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court.
1. The evidence fully authorized the verdict, and therefore the general grounds of the motion for new trial are without merit.
2. In the amended motion for new trial, special ground 4 makes the point that the venue of the crime was not sufficiently shown. Ed Burton, a witness for the State, after relating the circumstances of the alleged homicide, and after testifying as to the cause of death and the condition of the victim's body, testified as follows: 'That happened in this county, Jenkins County, State of Georgia, on the 14th day of April, last year, 1946.' From this testimony the jury was authorized to find that the alleged homicide was committed in Jenkins County, Georgia, and this ground of the motion is without merit. Womble v. State, 107 Ga. 666, 33 S.E. 630; Lee v. State, 176 Ga. 215, 218, 167 S.E. 507; Rider v. State, 196 Ga. 767, 27 S.E.2d 667.
3. Where, as here, the defendant in her statement to the jury admitted that the deceased was 'struck' while she and the deceased were engaged in a friendly scuffle, but claimed that it was not intentional, the case is not one depending wholly upon circumstantial evidence, so as to require a charge upon the law of such evidence. Duren v State, 158 Ga. 735(3), 124 S.E. 343; Strickland v. State, 167 Ga. 452, 145 S.E. 879; ...
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