Boggus v. State

222 S.E.2d 686, 136 Ga. App. 917, 1975 Ga. App. LEXIS 1530
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedDecember 4, 1975
Docket51009
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 222 S.E.2d 686 (Boggus v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boggus v. State, 222 S.E.2d 686, 136 Ga. App. 917, 1975 Ga. App. LEXIS 1530 (Ga. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinions

Stolz, Judge.

Appellant was indicted and tried for the crime of burglary. He was convicted and sentenced to serve six years. He appeals.

1. Appellant cites as error the trial judge’s statement, made in the presence of the jury and directed to counsel for appellant’s co-defendant, "Well, I will go back in my office and take the plea.” It is urged that Code Ann. § 38-414, providing that confessions of one joint offender or conspirator made after the enterprise is ended shall be admissible only against himself, was violated. While it is true that this Code section does encompass pleas of guilty, we are persuaded that it has application only where such confessions or pleas are admitted in evidence. Gray v. State, 13 Ga. App. 374 (79 SE 223). Whether the remark of the trial judge amounted to an expression of an opinion on a material matter involved in the case, controls this situation. Mungin v. State, 147 Ga. 425 (1) (94 SE 236). While the judge’s statement was indiscreet and comes close to violating the spirit if not the letter of Code Ann. § 38-414, it did not express an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of any of the defendants. Any prejudice which might have resulted from the statement was nullified when appellant’s co-defendant, who had entered a plea of guilty, was called as the state’s witness; the jury learned nothing more by inference from the judge’s statement than it later learned directly from the state’s witness himself. The enumeration of error is without merit. Gray v. State, 13 Ga. App. 374, supra.

2. Over appellant’s objections the court allowed testimony by two witnesses as to telephone conversations they had received. Generally telephone communications are hearsay and not admissible in evidence unless the identity of the party at the other end of the line can be established. Price v. State, 208 Ga. 695 (1) (69 SE2d 253); Denson v. State, 209 Ga. 355 (6) (72 SE2d 725). However, an exception to this hearsay rule is found in Code Ann. § 38-302, which provides that information, conversations, letters and replies and similar evidence such as telephone calls may be admitted as original evidence to explain [918]*918conduct and to ascertain motives. The record here reveals that the telephone conversations were introduced to explain the subsequent conduct of the witnesses testifying as to the calls. Griffie v. State, 107 Ga. App. 356 (1) (130 SE2d 149). We find no cases which require as a prerequisite to admissibility under Code Ann. § 38-302 that the person on the other end of the line be identified with particularity; it would be absurd to require that evidence qualifying under an exception to the hearsay rule must meet the requirements of the very rule to which it is an exception. Though the judge more properly should have instructed the jury that the testimony was being admitted solely for the purpose of illustrating the conduct of the witness and for no other, appellant’s enumerations of error numbers 2 and 5 are without merit. Griffie v. State, 107 Ga. App. 356 (1), supra.

3. Appellant urges that it was error to overrule his objection to a purported leading question. Assuming without deciding that the question objected to was in fact leading, it is within the discretion of the trial judge to permit the prosecuting attorney to propound leading questions to a witness for the state. Morgan v. State, 17 Ga. App. 124 (1) (86 SE 281). Also, the record shows that no answer was ever given to the question objected to; a trial judge’s discretion with regard to leading questions will not be controlled unless it appears that injury results therefrom. Tippins v. Lane, 184 Ga. 331 (1) (191 SE 134). No injury occurred; no error was made.

4. Appellant’s citation of the judge’s charge to the jury with regard to burglary as error, is without merit. Under Code Ann. § 26-1601, burglary is a crime of intent; whether a defendant intended to commit a felony when he entered a home or a building of another is for the determination of the jury under the facts and circumstances proved. Thompson v. State, 76 Ga. App. 239 (3) (45 SE2d 675). Generally, specific intent must be proved by circumstantial evidence. Flewellen v. State, 77 Ga. App. 804 (49 SE2d 921). The entering of a building without authority from the owner or occupant is itself a felonious entry under Code Ann. § 26-1601; if there is ample proof of the unauthorized entry, the jury can logically conclude that, the defendant having committed [919]*919one felony, his conduct after entry indicates an intent to commit another. Coney v. State, 125 Ga. App. 52 (186 SE2d 478). Nothing in Williamson v. State, 134 Ga. App. 583 (215 SE2d 518) or Baker v. State, 127 Ga. App. 99 (192 SE2d 558) compels us to hold that it was error to fail to charge the jury on the crime of criminal trespass. In both those cases there was testimony by the respective defendants, which if believed, would negate an element of the crime of burglary, entry with intent to commit felony. In this case the only evidence presented which would tend to negate the intent element was given by the state’s witness who testified, ". . . we didn’t get in with the intentions to harm to start with ...” This is not sufficient evidence to require a charge on criminal trespass.

5. Appellant urges that it was error for the court to allow a witness to testify for the state whose name did not appear on the list of witnesses furnished to him. Code Ann. § 27-1403 requires such a list to be given to a defendant in a criminal case and forbids testimony by one whose name does not appear thereon unless the evidence sought to be presented is "newly-discovered.” The record here reveals that the witness was called in rebuttal of appellant’s testimony and the state’s attorney stated that he had no knowledge of the existence or need for the evidence he sought to present at the time he furnished the list of witnesses to the appellant. Under these circumstances it was not error to permit the witness to testify. Yeomans v. State, 229 Ga. 488 (2) (192 SE2d 362).

6. Appellant contends the following charge to be error: "Circumstantial evidence is relied upon to establish the fact. The evidence must be such as to reasonably establish the theory relied upon to preponderate to that theory rather than any other reasonable hypothesis.” (Emphasis supplied.) Both this court and the Supreme Court have agreed that this charge is erroneous. Wells v. State, 126 Ga. App. 130 (1) (190 SE2d 106); Pless v. State, 231 Ga. 228 (1) (200 SE2d 897); Woods v. State, 233 Ga. 495 (212 SE2d 322). The only disagreement between this court and the Supreme Court is whether following this erroneous charge with "before you would be authorized to convict on circumstantial evidence alone, the proven facts must not only be consistent with the hypothesis, or [920]*920conclusion, of guilty, but must exclude every reasonable hypothesis or conclusion except that of guilt of the accused . . makes the error harmless. We need not resolve this conflict here because the "curative” charge was never given; the jury was left solely with an erroneous charge with regard to the burden of proof necessary to convict on circumstantial evidence alone.

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Bluebook (online)
222 S.E.2d 686, 136 Ga. App. 917, 1975 Ga. App. LEXIS 1530, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boggus-v-state-gactapp-1975.