Wells v. State
| Decision Date | 07 August 1902 |
| Citation | 42 S.E. 390,116 Ga. 87 |
| Parties | WELLS. v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
CRIMINAL LAW — DEFECTIVE VERDICT — AMENDMENT—ARREST OF JUDGMENT.
1. Where by consent the jury in a criminal case, after agreeing upon their finding, dispersed, and thereafter returned into court a verdict which was too uncertain or indefinite to support a judgment it was beyond the power of the court to order this verdict to he so amended as to cure the defects therein. Any action by the court in attempting to thus amend such a verdict should be treated as a mere nullity.
2. Where, upon an indictment charging the offense of simple larceny, by stealing a hog, a verdict in these words was rendered, "We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of misdemeanor, " it was erroneous to overrule a motion in arrest of judgment.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error from superior court, Washington county; B. D. Evans, Judge.
Set Wells was convicted of hog stealing, and brings error. Reversed.
T. W. Hardwick, for plaintiff in error.
B. T. Rawlings, Sol. Gen., for the State.
On the trial of Set Wells under an indictment charging him with hog stealing, after the argument was concluded and the charge given to the jury, and when the court was about to take a recess for the night, counsel for both sides consented that the jury should disperse after agreeing upon a verdict, and that the foreman should return the verdict into court the next morning. A verdict was agreed upon during the night, and the Jury then dispersed. The next morning a verdict in the following words was rendered: "We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of misdemeanor." Thereupon the court, over the objection of the accused, passed the following order: Judgment was entered upon the verdict as amended, and the accused sentenced as for a misdemeanor. He moved in arrest of Judgment upon the ground that there was no legal verdict against him upon which judgment could be entered. The motion was overruled, and the accused excepted.
Under the Code of 1882 (sections 4399, 4401), hog stealing was punishable as a misdemeanor when the Jury trying the case recommended the prisoner to mercy. In such event the judge was obliged to follow the jury's recommendation, and to impose a misdemeanor punishment. Such, however, is no longer the law, since the adoption of the Code of 1895. Pen. Code, § 163, declares: "The punishment of hog-stealing shall be as...
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Ex parte Booth
...of the theft of property of the value of $20 or over, the judgment must be reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial." In Wells v. State, supra, the court was considering a reading "guilty of misdemeanor," returned upon an indictment charging "hog-stealing." The statute made the offe......
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Booth v. State
...yet been dispersed, and the trial court did not err in allowing the jury to retire for further deliberations). Compare Wells v. State , 116 Ga. 87, 89, 42 S.E. 390 (1902) (verdict could not be amended because "when the verdict was agreed on and the jury dispersed the trial was, in effect, a......
- Gamblin v. State, (No. 15810.)
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Johnson v. State
... ... because based upon insufficient pleadings or such as are upon ... their face bad." Hay v. Collins, 118 Ga. 243, ... 246, 44 S.E. 1002, 1004 ... If the ... verdict is one which the jury cannot legally render, a motion ... in arrest of judgment will lie. Wells v. State, 116 ... Ga. 87, 42 S.E. 390; Smith v. State, 117 Ga. 16, 43 ... S.E. 440. In the cases cited the jury, trying the defendants ... who were charged with felonies, found them guilty of ... misdemeanors. When the verdict rendered is so vague and ... uncertain that no legal judgment can ... ...