Home/Court of Appeals of Georgia/Mathews v. State

Mathews v. State

120 S.E.2d 359, 103 Ga. App. 743, 1961 Ga. App. LEXIS 1048
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedMay 24, 1961
Docket38835
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 120 S.E.2d 359 (Mathews 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
Mathews v. State, 120 S.E.2d 359, 103 Ga. App. 743, 1961 Ga. App. LEXIS 1048 (Ga. Ct. App. 1961).

Opinion

Jordan, Judge.

John J. Mathews was tried and convicted in the Superior Court of Clayton County for the offense of burglary. His motion for a new trial on the general and two special grounds was denied, and the exception-is to that judgment. Held:

1. The first special ground of the amended motion for new trial contends that the court erred in refusing to declare a mistrial for the reason that the answer of a witness for the State to a question propounded to him by the solicitor-general put the defendant’s character in issue when he had not done so himself. The witness, O. W. Allen, a detective with the Atlanta Police Department, in answer to the question, “State to the court your purpose of going to his [the defendant’s] home,” testified as follows: “We went to his home looking for some stolen goods.” Since the court promptly sustained the objection of counsel for the defendant to this testimony and ruled out the question and answer objected to, and instructed the jury not to consider the witness’s testimony, this ground is without merit. Carrigan v. State, 206 Ga. 707 (2) (58 S. E. 2d 407); Stanford v. State, 201 Ga. 173 (2) (38 S. E. 2d 823); Eden v. State, 43 Ga. App. 414 (1) (159 S. E. 134).

2. Where stolen goods are found in the possession of the defendant charged with burglary, recently after the commission of the offense, that fact would authorize the jury to infer that the accused was guilty, unless he explained his possession to their satisfaction. Morris v. State, 47 Ga. App. 792, 795 (171 S. E. 555). Special ground 2 which assigns error on that portion of the court’s charge, which embodied this principle ■ of law, is without merit.

3. The general grounds of the motion for new trial, not having been referred to or argued by counsel for the defendant, are considered abandoned.

Judgment affirmed.

Townsend, P. J., and Frankum, J., concur.

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

Related

Russell v. State
287 S.E.2d 286 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1981)
Bell v. State
285 S.E.2d 578 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1981)
Rutledge v. State
236 S.E.2d 143 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1977)
King v. State
233 S.E.2d 274 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1977)
Carpenter v. State
231 S.E.2d 97 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1976)
Evans v. State
226 S.E.2d 303 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1976)
Bryan v. State
223 S.E.2d 219 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1976)
Floyd v. State
223 S.E.2d 230 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1976)
Brown v. State
209 S.E.2d 721 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1974)
Horton v. State
187 S.E.2d 677 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1972)
Aiken v. State
178 S.E.2d 202 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1970)
Taylor v. State
164 S.E.2d 876 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1968)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
120 S.E.2d 359, 103 Ga. App. 743, 1961 Ga. App. LEXIS 1048, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mathews-v-state-gactapp-1961.