Wells alias Wilson v. State, 18443
| Decision Date | 10 February 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 18443,18443 |
| Citation | 210 Ga. 422,80 S.E.2d 153 |
| Parties | WELLS allas WILSON v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
W. Paul Carpenter, Wm. H. Whaley, Wesley R. Asinof, Young H. Fraser, Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.
Roy Leathers, Sol. Gen., Eugene Cook, Atty. Gen., Rubye G. Jackson, Atlanta, for defendant in error.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court.
Luther Wells, alias Lewis Wilson, was indicted, tried, and convicted of murder in DeKalb Superior Court, the indictment alleging that he did unlawfully kill and murder J. C. Nix, W. E. Johnson, and John Brandon feloniously and with malice aforethought, while operating and driving a certain automobile upon the public highway between Redan and Lithonia in DeKalb County while under the influence of intoxicants, the same being a weapon likely to produce death in the manner in which it was being used and then and there operated, and did then and there run into and against the automobile in which J. C. Nix and W. E. Johnson were riding, thereby knocking, hurling, and tossing the occupants in and around and about the automobile, and in the same manner the aforesaid Brandon in the car in which the defendant was driving, and inflicting wounds and injuries which caused their deaths. The evidence in substance was as follows: The accused was seen driving one of the automobiles involved shortly before the collision as it left a filling station, and an eyewitness who saw the collision testified that the car, driven by the accused, was being driven in a reckless manner, at a high rate of speed, weaving to the wrong side of the road, and was on the left side of the road just prior to the impact. There was testimony that the accused was found under the wheel after the collision, that he was under the influence of intoxicants, and that he admitted at the hospital that he was driving the car. Other witnesses testified that the skid marks left by the police car were from 90 to 128 feet long, that such marks would be made by a car traveling 55 miles per hour; and that there was approximately 1,000 feet of clear view at the point of impact. The eyewitness also testified that the police car was hit in the right side, that it was traveling on the correct side of the road, that just before the impact the officers attempted to miss the other car by moving to the left, the collision occurring in almost the center of the road, and that the accused failed to put on brakes and there were no skid marks made by the car he was driving. A motion for new trial, as amended, was filed, heard and overruled, and the exception here is to that judgment. Held:
1. While the motion for continuance in the trial court was based on the mental condition of the defendant, and the testimony of a psychiatrist was that he was mentally unfit for trial, nevertheless, the discretion of the trial judge will not be controlled unless it be flagrantly abused; and since the trial judge observed the physical and mental condition of the defendant in court and had the advantage of the testimony of other competent physicians, although not psychiatrists, that in their opinion the defendant was not too ill physically or mentally, to stand trial, this court can not hold that the trial judge abused his discretion in denying the motion for continuance. See Roberts v. State, 14 Ga. 6; Long v. State, 38 Ga. 491, 506; Edenfield v. State, 26 Ga.App. 206, 207, 105 S.E. 732; Griffin v. State, 208 Ga. 746, 749, 69 S.E.2d 192. For the reason...
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