Wall v. State

• Decision Date: 29 November 1900
• Parties: WALL v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

37 S.E. 371

112 Ga. 336

WALL v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia

November 29, 1900

Syllabus by the Court.

1. When, in a trial for murder, the accused denied that he inflicted upon the deceased the alleged mortal wound, and also that the death of the latter was in fact thereby caused it was not proper for the court to charge, in effect, that if the accused did inflict such wound, and if it caused the death, it was a case of murder.

2., It was, in such a trial, erroneous to charge, in substance, that the testimony of an expert witness was entitled to great weight. (a) The error committed by so charging in the present case was prejudicial to the accused, and in consequence there should be a new trial.

Error from superior court, Rabun county; J. B. Estes, Judge.

Chub Wall was convicted of homicide, and brings error. Reversed.

Howard Thompson, W. S. Paris, W. F. Findley, and L. E. Bleckley, for plaintiff in error.

W. A Charters, Sol. Gen., J. M. Terrell, Atty. Gen., and H. H Dean, for the State.

LEWIS J.

Wall was placed upon trial in Rabun superior court on an indictment charging him with the offense of murdering one Christopher Obyrne. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, whereupon the accused made a motion for a new trial, and exception is taken to the judgment of the court overruling the same.

1. One ground in the motion is that the court erred in charging the jury as follows: "If you believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Obyrne was killed by some one, then I charge you that the killing was murder, and nothing below the offense of murder." Another ground in the motion is that the court erred in charging: "If you should believe from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Obyrne was killed, and that this defendant on trial was the man that killed him, then, of course, he would be guilty." In the present case the accused pleaded not guilty. He denied that he shot the deceased, and claimed that the death of the latter did not result from the wound he had received. We do not mean to join issue with the correctness of the proposition laid down by the judge, that, if this deceased died as the result of a pistol-shot wound he received, it was a case of murder, and that, if the accused inflicted the wound, he was guilty. We think that view is fully sustained by the evidence. But we do not think it is proper to give such in charge to the jury. While it does not express an opinion on the evidence directly, it is applying a principle of law to facts in the case, and we think this is rather in the province of the jury. We do not mean, however,...