Dodson v. State

158 S.E. 592, 172 Ga. 760, 1931 Ga. LEXIS 197
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedMay 18, 1931
DocketNo. 8269
StatusPublished

This text of 158 S.E. 592 (Dodson v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dodson v. State, 158 S.E. 592, 172 Ga. 760, 1931 Ga. LEXIS 197 (Ga. 1931).

Opinion

Beck, P. J.

John Dodson was indicted for the murder of Yerna Dodson, his wife; and upon the trial the jury returned a verdict of guilty, with a recommendation. Thereupon the defendant made a motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and he excepted. The motion for new trial contains only the usual general grounds that the verdict was contrary to the evidence and without evidence to support it; that it was decidedly and strongly against the weight of the evidence, etc. The evidence in substance is as follows:

Josey Mae Edwards, a witness for the State, after stating that she knew the defendant and the decedent, testified that she saw them walking together in the road: “They were walking side by side. I had not watched them long. I did not hear them tailring to one another; and if there was any dispute between them, I' did not hear it. I don’t know how far I was from them, but I [761]*761was not very far. It was a little further than to the corner of this building, but 'it was not as far as from here to the first street out there [indicating]. I don’t know whether it was 150 leet. I was close enough to them to sec them good. I could not see what each one had in their hand. It was daytime, and I could toll who they were. . . When I seed him they had hold of each other; he pushed her off, and then the pistol fired. I mean John Dodson pushed Yerna Dodson off. After the pistol fired Yerna Dodson died. Yerna started to fall, and John caught her; then he laid her on the porch, and I went to her. I did not hear her say anything after she was shot. I don’t know how long she lived after she was shot, but not very long. She died that same day. . . After John shot Yerna he went up the road. I disremember who took Yerna home, but she was taken home in a wagon. John was not with her and did not take her home. . . Lige Brown was with John Dodson and his wife, right with them.” On cross-examination this witness testified: “I didn’t hear any words passed between John and his wife. 1 wasn’t paying that much attention to them.”

Dave Jackson, a witness for the State, testified in part: “John killed his wife with a pistol, and I saw it. I was about 150 or 200 yards from the shooting. Before the shooting occurred I heard no words between John Dodson and his wife. After the shooting I went there. John Dodson was gone. From the road, him and Lige Brown carried her to the porch. From there I don’t know who carried her. I don’t know what become of John after he carried her from the road, he left. . . At the time of the shooting Yerna was doing nothing to John Dodson as I seen, no more than they were locked up. Locked like their arms were locked together like that [indicating]. I don’t know how far John was from Yerna when he shot her, but they were close together. . . No, sir, I wasn’t right with them. . ‘ . ■ I was 150 or 200 yards from them when the pistol fired. I was with John Milner, Dave Scrutchens, and Anna Claude Adams. We could see them down the road.”

Annie Claude Adams testified for the defendant, in part, as follows: “I was about about 24 yards from John Dodson the day his wife got shot. She turned round to me, and went back with him, laughing and playing. I did not see him when he shot her. [762]*762Me and Uncle John and Dave Scrutchens were there. I just didn’t see it. They did not act like they were mad with each other. . . I was with Dave Jackson, John Milner, and Dave Scrutchens. I was not with them all the time. I met them. I did not tell them nothing, as to how it happened. I made no statement to them at all. When I met Dave Jackson and Dave Scrutchens I did not tell them that John Dodson and Yerna Dodson were fussing before John shot her.”

Lige Brown, a witness for the State, testified: “I was with them the day that John shot his wife. They were walking, tussling and playing, and there was a car coming, and they tussled with the pistol and were playing, and there was a car come along; and when he went to hand me the pistol, it went off and shot her. Nobody else was there with us. . . I don’t know why he had the pistol in his hand. . . I don’t know that John and Yerna had been fussing about her not cooking dinner for him. I did not hear them say anything about that. The pistol went off in the hands of John Dodson. She started to fall, and John caught her, and me and him put her on the porch. John went after the doctor. He did not leave home. . . I don’t know what John and Yerna was saying to each other. I was there. I say they were playing because they were laughing, what about I don’t know. . . I was right there. I am not any kin to John, the defendant, and am no kin to his wife, the deceased. I have no interest in this case. I work on the same place. This woman, Annie Claude Adams, she was down the road. Don’t know how far she was from me. She came up there right away. Last time I saw Josey Mae Edwards she was in bed in the daytime. She came out there, and she got there before they moved the woman who was shot. . . I don’t know where John Dodson got the pistol from. I was with him, and when I seed the pistol John had it in his hand. I saw it two or three minutes before the killing. John had the pistol in his hand, down by his side, walking along. John put it up there in position to shoot Yerna, I reckon. . . I can not tell the jury anything that Yerna said to John Dodson, and can not tell the jury anything that John said to Yerna. I say they were playing because they were laughing. . . They were tussling in the big road, but I don’t know what they were tussling about; they didn’t say. I don’t know what he was trying’to do to her or she [763]*763to him. Before the tussling John had the pistol in his hand, and Yerna started to tussling with her husband, with that pistol in his hand. That is when the shooting occurred. . . After John shot his wife, he went for the doctor. . . I don’t remember nothing John said there when he shot her.”

Dave Jackson, recalled by the State, testified: “I know Annie Claude Adams, the witness who testified here this morning. I saw her immediately after the shooting of Yerna Dodson. Q. What statement did she make to you, if any, as to what was said between Dodson and his wife? A. No more than she says John threatened to kill her, didn’t know what they said. She told me that after the shooting; she was standing there in the road. . . Annie Claude told me they were fussing. Said John threatened to kill Yerna; didn’t say what for. She told me that at the body where the woman fell. I heard her talking about it; I don’t know who she was talking to at the time. I do not know all the people there. I don’t know all the people down in that section. I can’t tell you who was there at the time, except me. I was with John Milner and Dave Scrutchens, and they heard it. She told me John Dodson and his wife were fussing.”

John Milner, a witness for the State, testified: “I know Annie Claude Adams. I was going up the road the day Yerna Dodson was killed. I heard the shooting. I saw them tangled up and tussling in the road. I was about two hundred yards from them. Immediately before the shooting, I had a talk with Annie Claude Adams. When I got to where she was I asked her, I looked up the road and saw them tangled up and tussling, and I asked, her what they were doing — playing? and she said, no, sir, they were fighting. She said that he asked her to go home and fix his dinner, and she told him she had dinner fixed; and that when she told him that, he says, ‘’Well, you go home and put it on the table,’ and she says, 'You been putting it on the table,’ and he says ‘I’m going to kill you anyhow, God damn you.’ That’s what she said he said.”

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Bluebook (online)
158 S.E. 592, 172 Ga. 760, 1931 Ga. LEXIS 197, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dodson-v-state-ga-1931.