Cole v. State

22 S.E.2d 529, 68 Ga. App. 179, 1942 Ga. App. LEXIS 80
Court of Appeals of Georgia·Decided October 20, 1942·No. 29757.·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinion

MacIntyre, J.

The defendant was indicted for murder and convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the commission of an unlawful act. He moved for a new trial, and to the overruling of his motion he excepted.

1. The defendant filed a demurrer and a plea in abatement, both of which sought to attack the indictment on the ground that '•“certain persons who found the bill against the defendant were not persons who had their names in the grand jury box and on the list of the grand jurors of this county, namely, J. W. Carrington, H. E. Eaniday, and E. P. Auston, and without their names there were only 17 grand jurors who returned the indictment.” We will consider these questions in inverse order. We will first consider the plea in abatement. The evidence on the trial of the plea showed that the names, E. P. Austin, H. E. Kennedy, and J. W. Carrington Jr., inscribed on the indictment, were misspelled; that is, the clerk of the grand jury misspelled the name “Austin” and wrote it “Auston;” that he mispelled “Kennedy” and spelled it “Canady,” and then wrote “K” over the “C” so that to some it might look like an “K;” and that the clerk of said grand jury did not add “Jr.” after the name of J. W. Carrington. The presumption is that the grand jury was legally constituted. Where, as here, the names so nearly corresponded, and the evidence showed that the persons who actually served as grand jurors were the individuals designated by the jury commissioners as grand jurors, and were registered on the list as competent to serve, the mere wrong spelling of the names *181 by the clerk of the grand jury as above indicated, which were slight inaccuracies, should be passed by as immaterial. “The important question is, did the men chosen as grand jurors act and find the bill true? Are those who found the charge true identical with those who were drawn to pass upon the charge? The question is not so much idem sonms as it is idem persona,.” Reich v. State, 63 Ga. 616; Hayes v. State, 58 Ga. 35; Turner v. State, 78 Ga. 174, 180; Chapman v. State, 18 Ga. 736, 738.

Under the uncontradicted evidence in the instant case the mere fact that the names of the grand jurors were misspelled does not render the direction of the verdict against the plea in abatement erroneous when it appears that the misspelling of the names was immaterial, and that, giving to the opposite party the benefit of the most favorable view of the evidence as a whole and all the legitimate inferences therefrom, the verdict against him is demanded. Eason v. Joy Floral Co., 34 Ga. App. 501 (2) (130 S. E. 352).

2. The judge overruled the demurrer on the ground that it was a speaking demurrer. “A speaking demurrer is one which alleges some new matter, not disclosed by the pleading [indictment] against which the demurrer is aimed and not judicially known or legally presumed to be true. Such a demurrer presents no question for decision, and’should never be sustained.” Miller v. Southern Ry. Co., 21 Ga. App. 367 (3 a) (94 S. E. 619); Clarke v. East Atlanta Land Co., 113 Ga. 21, 27 (38 S. E. 323); Williams v. Seaboard Air-Line Ry. Co., 165 Ga. 655, 664 (141 S. E. 805). But the defendant says his demurrer may be predicated upon what is judicially known, without asserting the fact to exist, but may treat it as existing. Mutual Building & Loan Asso. v. Moore, 232 Ala. 488 (169 So. 1). Yet to do this the court must take judicial cognizance that the name of the person appearing as one of the grand jurors on the indictment was not the name of a person who was on the grand jury list of the county, and in the instant case the court did not err in refusing to take judicial knowledge that such a fact existed. The case here is a good illustration of why the judge was correct. “Facts judicially noticed are thereby presented as effectually to the court as if they had been established by the proper proof.” 24 C. J. 172 (97). In the instant ease the court should not have taken *182 judicial knowledge that such facts were true or existed on the theory that it knew them to be true, when in truth such facts did not exist, and upon a proper issue later made by the plea in abatement it was developed that the very things the defendant wished the court to treat as true or existing, were, upon the evidence properly introduced under such pleading, found and declared by the court not to be true. The demurrer could not be predicated on what is judicially known without asserting such facts to exist. Hence, the demurrer which alleged facts that did not otherwise appear in the pleadings was a speaking demurrer, and the court properly refused to consider it on the basis of these facts.

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

Cole v. State, 22 S.E.2d 529, 68 Ga. App. 179, 1942 Ga. App. LEXIS 80 (Ga. Ct. App. 1942).

22 S.E.2d 529 (Cole v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

State v. Paulsen
286 N.W.2d 157 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1979)
State v. Holmes
237 S.E.2d 406 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1977)
State v. Hooper
208 S.E.2d 161 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1974)
Hughes v. State
88 S.E.2d 211 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1955)
Walters v. State
83 S.E.2d 48 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1954)