Daniels v. State

199 S.E. 572, 58 Ga. App. 599, 1938 Ga. App. LEXIS 64
Court of Appeals of Georgia·Decided November 2, 1938·No. 26832·Published·Cited by 47 cases

Opinion

MacIntyre, J.

The defendant, Fred Daniels, was jointly indicted with Pee Wee Burns and Charlie Thompson for the robbery of Pete Modena. It was alleged that on July 17, 1936, they took by force “one lady’s diamond ring, one man’s diamond ring, one 38-caliber Smith & Wesson pearl-handle pistol, one stick-pin with diamond and green emerald, one flash light, two baby pins on chain, one baby ring, one kodak, 205 eases of assorted whisky, and $257 in lawful D. S. currency, of the value of $3659.25.”

The evidence for the State tended to show that a man named B. II. O’Conner, alias Hugh Gibson, and one named L. M. Wilson, alias Ned Welch, had been released from the Federal penitentiary a short while before the commission of the robbery complained of. They had both been out of the State for several weeks, and they met in Atlanta on Sunday, July 12, 1936, for the purpose of going to work for a night club in the environs of Atlanta. On the following Wednesday, O’Conner struck up with Charlie Thompson, who was an old acquaintance, and that night Thompson brought Pee Wee Burns up to the room in the Georgian Terrace Hotel which was occupied by O’Conner and Wilson. There the four agreed that Thompson, O’Conner, and Wilson would come to Macon the next day and look over the approaches to the residence of Pete Modena, and that on the following night they would all come to Macon and go to Modena’s residence with a truck and rob him of his money and his whisky, the agreement contemplating that O’Conner and Wilson were to receive $900 in cash from Burns and one third of the money taken from Modena. The next day Wilson went out and provided himself with two pairs of handcuffs, a large roll of two-inch adhesive tape, and a roll of flexible picture wire for the purpose of binding and blinding the Modena family, and Thomp[602] son, Wilson, and O’Conner came to Macon and looked the situation over and went back to Atlanta. That night they met near the Federal penitentiary in Atlanta and Burns informed them that his truck had gone on ahead. They overtook the truck about twelve miles out of Atlanta, and Fred Daniels, the defendant, was driving it. He was spoken of in the evidence, without objection, as being the “yes man” for Burns. Omitting the details of the robbery, it is sufficient to say that Burns and Wilson, according to the evidence, perpetrated the actual robbery, while O’Connor, Daniels, and Thompson waited on the outside. It is important probably to call attention to the evidence to the effect that they did not drive the truck directly to Modena’s house, but Daniels parked the truck at the municipal stadium, about a block away, all five of the men got in a car and rode up and down the street for an hour or two in the neighborhood of Modena’s house, waiting for the lights to go out at the Modenas’ house and in the homes of his neighbors. Gibson, a co-conspirator and a witness for the State, in part testified that “After we got here me and Wilson and Burns and Thompson and Daniels were riding around looking the situation over, and I don’t think Daniels knew he was coming here to hijack any whisky up to that time, Daniels was present when Burns and all of us were discussing how we were going to handle the Modenas. Daniels heard the discussion. When we got ready for the truck to come up to Modena’s house I motioned to Daniels and he drove the truck up to Modena’s house and backed it in there and he stayed in the truck and loaded the whisky. Daniels drove the truck in Modena’s back yard and turned around and backed the truck up to the house. I don’t think Daniels knew the jewelry was taken. I knew it.” The wife of Modena testified “Mr. Thompson knew we had Walker’s 93 liquor in the pantry on the back porch. That was a popular brand of whisky at that time.”

Special grounds 1 and 2. When the case was called the defendant made a motion to continue the case until another array of jurors could be impaneled on the ground that “this jury to be put upon the defendant” on yesterday heard the verdict of “guilty” read against Charlie Thompson who was jointly indicted with him. The defendant’s counsel stated that he only asked the court to continue the case until next week in the hope that a new panel of jurors might be placed upon him, and was not trying to delay unneces[603] sarily the trial of the case. The solicitor-general stated “that some of the jurors may have heard the verdict read in court but they have not heard any of the evidence. There may have been four or five jurors in court when the verdict was read.” The defendant contends that the failure to continue the ease was prejudicial error which required the granting of a new trial. We can not say that the trial judge abused his discretion in refusing to continue the case. Schnell v. State, 92 Ga. 459 (17 S. E. 966); Paulk v. State, 2 Ga. App. 662 (2) (58 S. E. 1109). When this motion was overruled, a formal challenge to the array was filed on the same ground. This contention of the defendant is without merit and is controlled by the case of Thompson v. State, 109 Ga. 272 (2) (34 S. E. 579), wherein it is said, “A challenge to the array is an objection to all of the jurors collectively, because of some defect in the panel as a whole. If for any reason the impartiality of any one or more of the jurors whose names appear on the panel is suspected, the proper method of determining the state of feeling of such juror or jurors is by a challenge to the polls, and when thus challenged they may be put on their voir dire. And this is the rule not only in the trial of criminal cases where the charge amounts to a felony, but in the trial of misdemeanors as well.”

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Daniels v. State, 199 S.E. 572, 58 Ga. App. 599, 1938 Ga. App. LEXIS 64 (Ga. Ct. App. 1938).

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