Wright v. State

• Decision Date: 06 July 1945
• Docket Number: 15156.
• Citation: 34 S.E.2d 879,199 Ga. 576
• Parties: WRIGHT v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

34 S.E.2d 879

199 Ga. 576

WRIGHT v. STATE.

No. 15156.

Supreme Court of Georgia

July 6, 1945

James Wright was convicted of the offense of murder in the alleged killing of Henry Clyde Harris on March 12 1944, by 'striking, beating and wounding the said Henry Clyde Harris with a certain axe,' and was sentenced to be electrocuted, the verdict having contained no recommendation. The defendant's motion for new trial containing the usual general grounds and six special grounds added by amendment, was overruled, and he excepted. The first three special grounds complained of admission of testimony over objection. Ground 4 complained that an axe was admitted over objection, as not being sufficiently identified. Ground 5 assigned error on a charge to the jury on the subject of confessions, while ground 6 complained because the court failed to charge on involuntary manslaughter.

The evidence for the State tended to show the following facts and circumstances: The person alleged to have been killed was the infant child of Daisy Bell Harries, a sister of the defendant's wife. The child was about two months old. The defendant and his wife, whose name was Oberzine, also had a child, a girl baby, about two and a half months old. The home of the defendant was only a short distance from that of Daisy Bell Harris, and the alleged offense was committed at the home of the latter. If the defendant did kill the deceased, he did so under the mistaken belief that he was killing his own child, and not Henry Clyde Harris, the child of his sister-in-law.

Daisy Bell Harris testified for the State in part as follows:

'I knew Henry Clyde Harris in his lifetime. * * * He was killed. He was my baby, two months old. He was killed at my home in the daytime. He was killed by James Wright. The first time I saw James Wright on the day Henry Clyde Harris was killed was before dinner. The baby was killed about two o'clock in the afternoon. I was at home, and James Wright come and asked me where was his wife, and I said, 'I don't know,' and he said I did know. He said I was telling him a lie. I was at home standing in the door at the time. He did not have any weapon or anything with him the first time he came there. On the first occasion, he left and went home. He did not stay so very long. When he came back the second time he had an axe. I was standing by the fireplace, and when he come up I came to the door. My door was not latched then. I latched the door the last time he come. He come into the house. He cut the door with the axe. I was in the house at the time, and when he started cutting on the door, I run out. Nobody was in the house besides me and the baby. Henry Clyde Harris, the baby, was on the bed. I ran out of the house across the field, and went out to the road. I did not take the baby with me, I left the baby in the bed. I met Ma and came back with her and saw he was lying on the floor. My mother's name is Corrine Johnson. I did not see my baby on the floor, she said he was. The next time I saw my baby he was on the bed, dead. James Wright had gone home. When the sheriff and them got there, they brought James Wright to my house that afternoon. James Wright said he was intending to kill his own baby. His baby was a girl baby and he intended to kill his baby. His baby was two months and two weeks old. My baby was two months old, about the same age. My baby was a boy baby and his baby was a girl baby. His baby had been staying there at my house. James Wright's wife was my sister. All that I have testified about happened in Terrell County in March of this year. * * * I am not married to my baby's pa. I am 18 years of age. * * * I live with my mother out east of town on Mr. Morris Fleming's farm. * * * James Wright lives just across the field from where we live. I can stand in my door and call him from his house. * * * Oberzine, my sister and James's wife, had been down to my house on Saturday. She did not come down there Sunday. James Wright came to my house Sunday before dinner. * * * He didn't have the axe at that time. * * * When he came back the second time, he came back with the axe. He said, 'I asked you about my wife,' and he said, 'You do know where she is,' and I said, 'I don't know,' and he drawed back on me. * * * When he come back the third time, I saw him before he got to the house. I jumped up and bolted the door. Then I got some potash water in a pan and threw it on him. When he come there, he stepped up to the door and asked me to let him in and I say, 'I am not going to do it, you go back home.' I threw the potash water in his face when he started up the doorsteps. I opened the door, threw the water on him, and then shut the door back and stayed there till he come up on the porch and hit the door with the axe and busted a slit in it, then I ran out the back door and left. So far as I know James never did get in that house. When I ran out the third time, I ran out across the field and came to the big road. Then I got with my mother and came on back home. My mother was gone to lodge meeting. Aunt Maria was standing on our porch when I left home. I ran out the back door, went out to the public road, and went to meet my mother. So far as I know, James never got in the house. My baby was in the bed, in the middle of a double bed. My baby was two months old and had been in that bed a long time, been on it ever since I was cooking dinner. He was on that bed asleep the first time James came down there. He was on there the second time he come. He was on there the third time he come. He had not been taken off the bed at all. * * * The baby was lying straight up and down lengthwise, covered up with his blanket over him * * *. My baby has his clothes on, his dress and undershirt. The next time I saw the baby he was on the bed. He was not in the same position he was when I left that house. He was dead the next time I saw him. * * * I saw the baby late that evening. He was still on the bed.

'Q. Did you see any signs on the baby of any bruises or cut places? A. On one side of his head. The skin was not broken. It was a kinder large size place right along there. * * * I do not know how come it there. There was no other place, except one little bruised place on the side of the neck that I saw on the baby. * * * At no time when James came to my house did he say anything about his baby or anybody else's baby. He was hunting Oberzine, his wife. * * * There were four children out there in the yard. They were there during the whole time. Aunt Maria was on the porch the third time James come down there, on the porch at my house where my baby was on the bed on the inside. I was on the inside of the house and saw James coming, and I bolted the door because James had previously been down there and drawed the axe on me and told me I was lying. I don't know what Aunt Maria was doing on the front porch. She was not there when James come the second time. When he came the third time she was out there and she was the one that said he was coming. * * * She stayed on the outside on the porch and I was on the inside. James did not say anything to Aunt Maria when he came on the porch. When James cut the slat out of the door, and I left there, I left her on the porch. * * * My baby was not in the same position when I finally decided to go back in the house it was when I left. I left him lying middle ways of the bed, when I got back he was lying on the edge.'

Maria Solomon testified for the State in part as follows: 'I knew Henry Clyde Harris in his lifetime. I know Daisy Bell Harris, and I knew her little boy, the one that got killed named Henry, because I named him. * * * Henry is dead. He was killed. I do not know who killed him. I was there at the time he was killed. I was standing on the porch, James Wright come up, and I stayed there on the porch till he got the door cut open. He says, 'Daisy Bell, how come you to tell me that God damn lie.' He run up to the door and says, 'God damn you,' and commenced cutting the door open. I hopped off the porch and went home and shut the door, and in a few minutes he came through my yard and says: 'You throwed the potash water on me, and run. I done killed your God damn old baby, and you can do anything you want with me.' He said that in my yard and I heard him. I was sitting in my house at the time. When Daisy Bell and her mother come, I went in the house behind her. When I went in the house, the baby was lying on the floor with blood running out of his nose. That is all I know about it. * * * I swore in the justice court that James never said a word to me. He didn't say a word to me. I said, when he came through the yard, he said he had done killed the damn baby. He didn't say it to me. When I got in the house he didn't see me. I was shut up in the house. He didn't say anything to me. I just overheard him say that. I was in the house shut up. * * * I knew it the day the committal trial was held, and I was swearing that day. I swore that day that I did not hear James say anything. I am swearing today that I did hear him say something. What I say now is the truth. Noboby told me to swear that. I told the truth as far as I know. I am the aunt. I am the star witness for the State in this case. I don't know that I appeared on the scene the third time that James went to the house. I saw James there three times. I am the one that got shut up in the house and heard James say, walking up the road, that he killed the damn baby. * * * I didn't see the potash water. That door was shut then. That is when he cut it open. That was when I got off the porch and left. He got the door cut open and got in the house. I went to my house. I got in my house and sat down. I waited till James got the door cut open and went in Daisy Bell's house before I...