Wright v. State, 16941

• Decision Date: 14 March 1950
• Docket Number: No. 16941,16941
• Citation: 58 S.E.2d 181,206 Ga. 644
• Parties: WRIGHT v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 181

58 S.E.2d 181

206 Ga. 644

WRIGHT v. STATE.

No. 16941.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

March 14, 1950.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The evidence was sufficient to authorize the jury to find the defendant guilty of murder.

2. The charge of the court which instructed the jury that the defendant, a woman, would be justified if she acted under the 'fears of a reasonable man' was not erroneous, the word 'man' being used in its generic sense. There was no request by the defendant that special attention be called to her sex as a circumstance to be considered in determining whether she acted under the fears of a reasonable person.

C. O. Purcell, Claxton, for plaintiff in error.

R. L. Dawson, Sol. Gen., Ludowici, Eugene Cook, Atty. Gen., Frank B. Stow, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.

HEAD, Justice.

1. Willie Mae Wright was indicted for the murder of Hartridge Mercer, and was found guilty with a recommendation of mercy. The evidence disclosed that the deceased died from a knife wound in or near the heart. The defendant admitted the homicide, but contended that she acted under reasonable fears for her own safety. The evidence was sufficient to authorize the jury to find the defendant guilty of the offense of murder.

2. The amended ground of the motion for new trial asserts that the court erred in giving the following charge to the jury: 'I charge you in connection with this case, gentlemen of the jury, the law of reasonable fears. If a person, as a reasonable man under the circumstances as they then exist, really believes his own life to be in danger and acting on such reasonable fears and for no other reason than to protect himself, he kills a person whom he thought he was in danger from, such killing would be wholly justified although the jury may not believe the killer was in any danger at all. If the circumstances were sufficient to and did arouse the fears of the defendant on trial for her own safety and those fears were the fears of a reasonable man and not those of a coward or child, then such fears would be real to the defendant and she would be justified in defending against what she thought was immediate danger.' It is insisted that this instruction was misleading to the jury, in that it restricted them to a consideration of the 'fears of a reasonable man,' whereas the defendant is a woman. It is also contended that the charge placed a greater responsibility on the defendant than the law contemplates, because the deceased was a man,...