Bowen v. State

84 S.E. 730, 16 Ga. App. 110, 1915 Ga. App. LEXIS 509
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedMarch 18, 1915
Docket5853
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 84 S.E. 730 (Bowen 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
Bowen v. State, 84 S.E. 730, 16 Ga. App. 110, 1915 Ga. App. LEXIS 509 (Ga. Ct. App. 1915).

Opinion

Wade, J.

Tom Bowen was convicted under an indictment charging him with robbery by force, alleged to have been committed in taking a watch and certain other property from the person of J. A. Bozier. From the testimony for the State it appeared, that between 1 and 2 o’clock at night, on December 27, 1913, Bozier engaged the defendant (who was a cab-driver) to drive him in cab No. 89 from a club on Marietta street, in the city of Atlanta, to the Brittain Hotel, and directed him to go by a store owned by Bozier and his brother. At the store Bozier opened the door and invited the defendant to come in, as the night was very cold, and in his presence opened a safe and took from it ten one-dollar bills. Thereafter Bozier re-entered the cab and instructed the defendant to take him to a house on Edgewood avenue, which he entered, and after a minute or two he returned to the street, got into the cab, and requested the defendant to drive to “the hotel.” The cab was driven up Edgewood avenue and Marietta street to Broad street, and out Broad street to Alabama street, and there it stopped, and the defendant turned to Bozier, who was then considerably under the influence of liquor, and said, “It was a little bit dangerous for me to drive over this way, I have been having some trouble over here.” Bozier replied, “I don’t reckon there is any harm in it,” but [112]*112the defendant said it was getting late in the morning. Just then a policeman came up and spoke to the defendant, but Eozier did not hear what was said, and the defendant turned the cab around and said, “I told you we would get into trouble if we didn’t mind/’ and suggested pulling down the shades in the cab, so that no one could see who was inside, and that they “drive around another way.” Eozier agreed to this, the defendant pulled down the shades, and the cab resumed its journey. Eozier failed to look out of the windows or pay any attention to the direction in which they were going. The cab finally stopped, the driver jumped out, and Eozier opened the door, and, failing to recognize the locality, inquired where the defendant was going. The defendant replied that he was going “into this house a minute,” and would be “right back.” Eozier said, “All right, hurry back,” and sat down again in the cab, but after ten or fifteen minutes he grew tired of waiting; it was very cold, and he got out of the cab and went to the house, and entered without knocking. The defendant was sitting by the fire, and, in reply to Eozier’s question why he did not come on, he said he was just getting ready to come. The defendant asked Eozier if he would not like to have a half-pint of whisky before leaving, and, when Eozier answered “Yes” and gave him a half-dollar, the defendant handed Eozier a half-pint bottle of some kind of liquid. Eozier, thinking it was whisky, took a drink from the bottle, gave the bottle back to the defendant, and went out with him and got in the cab. The defendant then said he had forgotten something, and went again into the house, with the statement that he would “be right back.” Eozier began feeling the effects of the drink he had taken from the bottle, which he said made him dizzy when he took it, and “went all through” him, and was “nothing like an ordinary drink of whisky,” and, suspecting that something was wrong, he took out a diamond stud that he wore, and put it under the lapel of his coat, and in a few minutes became unconscious. He testified that he had been drinking before he took this drink but was not drunk, and that after he became unconscious he knew no more until the following night, when he recognized his brother leaning over him at Grady Hospital, asking him to tell who was with him “that night.” His diamond stud, watch and chain, overcoat, masonic pin, and the contents of his pockets were taken from him after he drank the liquor and became unconscious.

[113]*113The doctor on duty at the Grady Hospital at the time Eozier was brought there testified, that he “was in such condition his own brother could not recognize him; his face was beaten to a jelly, his jaw was broken and nose broken, chin cut, several cuts on his face, eye knocked out;” that he seemed to have been beaten with some blunt instrument, and that the beating could have been done with an instrument similar to one exhibited at the trial; that .it was necessary for him to remain in the hospital a month or six weeks; that in response to questions before he was able to talk, he wrote the cab number — 89—on a piece of paper, the name of the club, and the time at which he left the club — 1:30; that his condition was desperate and he was unconscious when he was brought to the hospital, but when he wrote the cab number, etc., “he knew what he was talking about;” that the writing was done “Sunday afternoon after he was injured Friday night;” that he said the driver promised to take him to a “sporting house,” but he never reached it. Policeman Hannah testified, that he saw Eozier “on the night of December 37, 1913, about 5 o’clock in the morning;” that a colored woman came by on his beat and reported that some one was lying down in an alley, “moaning and going on;” that he went down to the alley, back of Gilmer street, and found a man beaten up worse than he had ever seen anybody; that he could not recognize him at all,, or tell whether he was white or black; that he called the patrol wagon and sent the man to the Grady Hospital. The witness said further he had known Tom Bowen, the defendant, for several years and had seen him at 3 o’clock the same morning; that the police examine cabs that go over their beats after 13 o’clock; that Tom Bowen’s number was 89, and that he came into Decatur street from Fort street, about two blocks away from where Eozier was found later. This witness said that Eozier was covered with blood and was unable to talk, and “there was a little piece of watch-chain hanging on to his vest, about as long as your finger. His overcoat was gone. I saw that piece of wood down there. After I sent him in I went back to search, and I found a pool of blood right in the mouth of, the alley, and this was lying right by it, and I found where it had been pulled off the fence, about ten feet from where I found Mr. Eozier.” The witness said, on cross-examination, that he was on duty from 13 o’clock to 8 :30; that he found Eozier in the alley or back yard of a place on Fifth avenue, [114]*114“a little over a block from Decatur street, and about as far from Gilmer street, across the street right at Gilmer street;” that Fifth avenue is a little alley running from Fort street, and Eozier was lying in the alley or back yard; that blood and bloody tracks were all about there, and blood “seemed to have been scattered all over everything when he was beaten up, and must have got on the man who beat him up too;” that he saw cab 89 g'oing in about 2 o’clock “at Decatur and Fort streets,” and at that time there was nobody in the cab, and the driver, Tom, was by himself; that the body was found about two blocks “this side” of where he saw the cab — the cab was two blocks beyond.”

Policeman Clack testified as follows: “I remember the night Mr. Eozier was assaulted. I saw him in the cab that night about 2 or little after 2 o’clock at Broad and Alabama streets, in Tom Bowen’s cab, No. 89. I am positive it was Tom Bowen; I don’t know how long I have known him. There was a man in the cab at the time, but I didn’t know it was Mr. Eozier. He drove the cab up and straight across the sidewalk at Broad and Alabama, and I never said anything to him. I stopped there a moment. I never said anything to him. I walked on to Mitchell street and came back, and he was still standing there.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Shields
189 S.E.2d 89 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1972)
United States v. Rodman
19 C.M.A. 102 (United States Court of Military Appeals, 1969)
State v. Larson
376 P.2d 537 (Washington Supreme Court, 1962)
Banks v. State
40 S.E.2d 103 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1946)
Osborne v. State
38 S.E.2d 558 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1946)
Smith v. State
143 S.E. 604 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1928)
Hines v. State
85 S.E. 452 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1915)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
84 S.E. 730, 16 Ga. App. 110, 1915 Ga. App. LEXIS 509, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bowen-v-state-gactapp-1915.