Welch v. State

• Decision Date: 24 July 1934
• Docket Number: No. 23497.,23497.
• Citation: 49 Ga.App. 380,175 S.E. 598
• Parties: WELCH. v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

49 Ga.App. 380

175 S.E. 598

WELCH.

v.STATE.

No. 23497.

Court of Appeals of Georgia,

Division No. 1.

July 24, 1934.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The testimony of the accomplice connecting the accessory before the fact with the commission of the robbery was sufficiently corroborated, and the evidence supports the verdict.

2. An accessory before the fact is indictable and triable in the county where the principal crime was committed.

3. None of the special grounds of the motion for a new trial discloses reversible error.

Error from Superior Court, Colquitt County; W. E. Thomas, Judge.

Dewey Welch was convicted of being an accessory before the fact to robbery, and he brings error.

Affirmed.

Jas. W. Smith, of Albany, and R. S. Foy, of Sylvester, for plaintiff in error.

MacINTYRE, Judge.

The indictment in this case charges that on October 11, 1932, in Colquitt county, Ga., E. C. James, alias Jimmy James, and Mote Welch robbed the Norman Banking Company, and that Dewey Welch was an accessory before the fact to the robbery. James pleaded guilty, and Mote Welch was tried and convicted. Dewey Welch was tried and convicted and given a penitentiary sentence. The question to be determined is whether or not the court erred in overruling Dewey Welch's motion for a new trial.

Arnold Horne, sworn for the state, testified that at "about eleven-twenty or eleven-thirty" on October 11, 1932, a time when witness was cashier of said bank and custodian of the money therein, Mote Welch and Jimmy James, dressed in Khaki overalls, entered the office or the Norman Banking Company, at Norman Park, Ga., and held him up at the point of a pistol and robbed the bank of $926; and that on Friday before the robbery was committed on Tuesday, "these people came to the bank and got some change."

Jimmy James, sworn for the state, testified, in substance, that Dewey Welch planned and procured said robbery; that the original plan was that the witness and Mote Welch, Dewey's brother, were to rob the bank, but that Mote "got cold feet"; that Dewey Welch introduced witness to a mysterious "boy from Chicago, " and they actually committed the robbery; that during the three years witness was in the liquor business he was "associated with Dewey Welch a part of the time in business, " and that he "stopped at Dewey's home a part of the time"; that during the pastthree years he had been associated with Dewey very closely both in a business and a social way; that two weeks prior to the robbery witness went to Cordele "on the advice of Dewey Welch" and stole "a 1931 Chevrolet sedan, practically new, " to be used in the robbery; that witness left this car in an outhouse at Mote Welch's home for a few days; that Dewey first went to Norman Park with witness and looked over the town, and that Dewey got out of the car, saying that he was going to get some change; that when Dewey returned he said "it would be an easy job and ought to be good for $10,000"; that when witness and his companion left Mote Welch's house to commit the robbery, Dewey thought that about 11:20 or 11:30 would toe as good a time as any to rob the bank; that Dewey was to meet them at a certain place "about twenty odd miles" from the place whore the bank was robbed, not far from Bridgeborro on the Albany-Doerun road, and about three or four miles from J. A. Pickron's home; that the robbery was committed at about 11:31; that after the robbery witness and his companion went to said meeting place in the stolen Chevrolet sedan, pulled off their overalls and laid them down beside the car, gave Dewey Welch a little over $300 and left a little more than that in the woods, left some shotgun shells in the Chevrolet car, got in witness' " '28 coupe, model A Ford, with rumble seat behind, " the car in which Dewey drove to the meeting place, and, with Dewey driving, went up by J. A. Pickron's store; that the three of them must have passed Pickron's place at about "eight minutes to twelve * * * eight minutes to eleven Albany time"; that Dewey had brought some bird dogs with him, and that there were "two bird dogs right on the back seat" when they passed Pickron's store; and that certain shells exhibited to witness were the shells he had left in the stolen car that was left at the meeting place.

J. A. Pickron, sworn for the state, testified, in substance, that he had no timepiece, but that at what he thought was 11 o'clock, on October 11, 1932, he saw Dewey Welch alone pass his house going towards Moultrie from Albany on the Albany-Doerun road, traveling in a two-passenger Ford car with a rumble seat behind; that witness was sitting on the side porch of his house "here in Worth county"; that about twenty or twenty-five minutes later witness saw Dewey Welch coining back by his house on the same road "from Moultrie and Doerun going towards Albany"; that there were two men with him, and that witness' best opinion was that Jimmy James was in the car with Dewey Welch and the other man; that witness saw a yellow and white-spotted setter dog standing up in the rumble seat of the car; that witness mentioned seeing Dewey Welch in the car to one Denison "the time he came down there looking for the green Chevrolet car and found it"; and that when the car passed witness' house "one of the men was looking out of the back window and down the road back of the car in the direction from which Aaron Vick and Mr. Home approached in about twenty minutes."

J. N. Sumner, sworn for the state, testified in part: "I saw the tracks of a car that came out of the place where we found the abandoned car. Later I went to Albany to see the car that Dewey Welsh was driving, and found this car with the same tread tires on it--Jimmy James' car, a green, model A Ford coupé with the same tread, and moved in this byroad and came out and turned towards Albany. I found the abandoned car and also where another car had been in the woods and came out and gone towards Albany. We went to Albany and found this car and drove it out. * * * on to a dirt street. * * * It was a Firestone * * * balloon tire. I compared all of the tires, and it was equipped with the same kind all the way round. I saw the car referred to as the abandoned car in the road about two miles north of Bridgeboro and off by road that went down the edge of the woods. * * * It was a green Chevrolet sedan, said to be '29 model. That is where I saw the track of the car that came up and turned. I saw two pairs of overalls lying on the ground near the left-hand side of the green car * * * and the gun-Shells were in the car."

Mr. Arnold Horne, recalled by the state, testified as follows: "On this day that the Bank of Norman Park was robbed by Mote Welch and Jimmy James, they came in a green Chevrolet sedan. I don't know anything about what the model the car was. I saw that sedan in Sylvester a night or two afterwards in the hands of sheriff Sumner."

J. A. Pickron, recalled for the defendant, testified in substance that while he was not altogether positive that Jimmy James was in the car that passed Pickron's house, to the best of his knowledge and belief James was in the car.

The gist of the defendant's long statement to the jury was that he was elsewhere when the robbery was committed and had no part in it. A part of his statement is as follows: "I am not the kind of man they have triedto show. * * * The worst thing I ever did, I have sold liquor and have had a few fist fights, but I never hit a white man hard enough to hurt him, and never shot a man. * * * As far as the bank robbery is concerned, I had nothing to do with it. James has staid at my house off and on at times when he did not have anywhere to stay, and I would let him have a room there to sleep. I had a big house and he slept there when he wanted to. I met him when he was working at the Herald office, and we rode around together quite a bit; and he wanted to buy a garage from me. * * * I sold him the garage. After he bought the garage Mr. Stewart came to see me about some whisky-- came to arrest me. I * * * showed him I had nothing to do with the shop. He said that was all right, 'I am glad you had nothing to do with it.' * * * After they sent James to jail for three months, I think he served his sentence and came out to the filling station and worked for me some time, off and on. * * * I was broke, but I furnished him some money to buy him some clothes, and give him another job, and he worked pretty well. * * * About that time the Government made a case against me about some whisky up over my filling-station, and they had me charged more with conspiracy than anything else, and Judge Deavers gave me a year and a day in Atlanta. * * * The following Thursday there were some two or three different people told me: 'The law is going to claim you had something to-do with that bank.' I says: 'No, they can't; I had nothing to do with it.' I thought they were joking. They said: 'Yes, there is a big reward offered for them, and this old man Pickron is going to testify you came down that road that day.' I says: I ain't been down the road. What time did old man Pickron say I was down there?' He says, 'eleven-thirty.' I remember where I was at and I seen what I did." The defendant then undertook to account for his whereabouts on the day of the robbery, the effect of his statement being that he was in and about Albany.

Aaron Denison, sworn for the defendant, testified in substance that it was about eleven miles from Pickron's store to Albany; that Dewey Welch was at witness' filling station in East Albany at "between eleven-thirty and twelve o'clock"; and that this filling station was on the "Sylvester road beyond the city limits."

The defendant introduced several other witnesses whose testimony tended to show that he was elsewhere when he was said to have passed Pickron's place. M. Burnett, sworn for the defendant, testified in substance that he saw Dewey Welch at "about one o'clock, Albany time, " in Albany; that he was in a Ford coupe; that Jimmy...