Hamby v. State

60 S.E.2d 635, 82 Ga. App. 7, 1950 Ga. App. LEXIS 1045
Court of Appeals of Georgia·Decided June 21, 1950·No. 32841·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinions

MacIntyre, P. J.

1. In special ground 1 of the motion for a new trial, as amended, the following portion of the charge of the court to the jury is assigned as error: “Now, in this case, the State relies on what is known—it relies in part on what is known as the testimony of an accomplice. And I give you this principle of law to govern you there. The testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to establish a fact. An exception to this rule is made in the case of a felony. Where the only witness is an accomplice, in such [a felony] case, corroborating, circumstances may dispense with another witness. The corroborating circumstances referred to must be such as to connect the defendant with the perpetration of the crime, and independently of the other evidence in the case, must connect the defendant with the commission of the crime charged in the bill of indictment.” (Brackets ours.) The defendant contends that this charge was erroneous in that this charge was an intimation or expression of an opinion of the trial judge in his charge to the jury that the State’s witness and codefendant, Robert Junior Chambers, was an accomplice, and denied to the jury the right to determine whether or not the State’s witness and codefendant, Robert Junior Chambers, was an accomplice. The judge, in the excerpt here referred to, was classifying the testimony relied upon in part by the State as being a class o'f testimony known or called accomplice’s testimony. He was not classifying the particular witness delivering it as an accomplice. He did not call the name of any witness in connection with such testimony. He did not state what any witness had testified. He was merely charging an abstract rule of law as it related abstractly to the testimony of any accomplice in any given case, which rule of law, he said, the State relied upon in the instant case. The court [8] in effect charged that the State relies upon a certain rule of' la-w- and stated that rule of law in the abstract, but did not apply it to any person or witness concretely. The court simply said in effect that where or if there is any testimony in a felony case by an accomplice—not necessarily in the instant felony case, but in any felony case—'the jury should apply the rule of law charged, to that testimony. Cantrell v. State, 141 Ga. 98 (5) (80 S. E. 649); Wells v. State, 194 Ga. 70 (4) (20 S. E. 2d, 580). After the court had given that portion of the charge complained of in this ground, the court charged: “After considering all the testimony, the facts and circumstances of the case, the documentary evidence produced, the defendant’s statement, and applying the law as given you in charge by the court, to the testimony as you find it to be and believe' it to be, if you are satisfied and convinced to a reasonable and moral certainty and beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt . . [you will find the defendant guilty; otherwise, you will find the defendant not guilty.]” (Brackets added.) We do not think that the charge complained of was erroneous for the reasons urged.

2. Special grounds 2 and 3 assign error upon the failure of the court anywhere in its charge to the jury to define what is necessary to constitute one an accomplice, and the failure of the court to instruct the jury that it was a question for the jury to determine whether the witness and codefendant, Robert Junior Chambers, was an accomplice. “Where the sole witness directly connecting the accused with the crime . . was an accomplice, the failure of the trial judge to instruct the jury what would, under the law, constitute an accomplice, or to define the term accomplice, is not reversible error, where it does not appear that there was a timely written request for such an instruction.” Baker v. State, 14 Ga. App. 578 (1) (81 S. E. 805); Butts v. State, 14 Ga. App. 821 (1) (82 S. E. 375); Cantrell v. State, supra; and see, in this connection, Cammons v. State, 59 Ga. App. 759, 766 (2 S. E. 2d, 205). In the absence of a request to charge upon these points, we do not think that grounds 2 and 3 are meritorious.

3. “ 'A conviction in a case of felony is sustainable upon the testimony of a single witness, though an accomplice, when the same is corroborated by other testimony connecting the accused [9] on trial with the perpetration of the crime and tending to show his participation therein.’ . . But ‘it is not required that this corroboration shall of itself be sufficient to warrant a verdict, or that the testimony of the accomplice be corroborated in every material particular . . Slight evidence from an extraneous source identifying the accused as a participator in the criminal act will be sufficient corroboration of the accomplice to support a verdict. . . The sufficiency of the corroboration of the testimony of the accomplice to produce conviction of the defendant’s guilt is peculiarly a matter for the jury to determine. If the verdict is founded on slight evidence of corroboration connecting the defendant with the crime, it can not be said, as a matter of law, that the verdict is contrary to the evidence.’ Hargrove v. State, 125 Ga. 270, 274 (54 S. E. 164); Whaley v. State, 177 Ga. 757 (171 S. E. 290).” Newman v. State, 63 Ga. App. 417 (2, 3) (11 S. E. 2d, 248). See also Roberts v. State, 55 Ga. 220 (3); Mitchell v. State, 202 Ga. 247, 248 (42 S. E. 2d, 767). “ ‘The facts relied upon as corroboration may be trifling when viewed by themselves and separately from the entire case; but the jury had the right to consider all the facts and to consider them in their relations one to another, and to determine whether or not, considering the facts and comparing them in their proper setting, under the evidence adduced, they tended to connect the defendant with the commission of the crime and were a sufficient corroboration of the evidence of the accomplice to authorize a conviction of the accused under the law.’ Callaway v. State, 151 Ga. 342, 348 (106 S. E. 577).” Blakely v. State, 78 Ga. App. 282, 291 (50 S. E. 2d, 762).

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Hamby v. State, 60 S.E.2d 635, 82 Ga. App. 7, 1950 Ga. App. LEXIS 1045 (Ga. Ct. App. 1950).

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