McCray v. State

68 S.E. 62, 134 Ga. 416, 1910 Ga. LEXIS 222
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedApril 27, 1910
StatusPublished
Cited by51 cases

This text of 68 S.E. 62 (McCray 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
McCray v. State, 68 S.E. 62, 134 Ga. 416, 1910 Ga. LEXIS 222 (Ga. 1910).

Opinions

Fisii, C. J.

(After stating the foregoing facts.)

1. One ground of the motion for a new trial complains because the court refused to set aside for cause a juror who was upon the [421]*421panel put upon the accused, after 'the juror had informed the court that the first wife of the father of the deceased was the juror’s niece, but that the juror was not related to the mother of the deceased, who was the second wife of his father. It is clear that it does not appear from the statement of the juror that he was related, either by consanguinity or affinity, to the deceased, nor does it appear that he was related to the prosecutor, who was D. B. Warnell, a brother of the deceased. The objection to his competency was, therefore, not well ta’ken.

2. The second ground of the amended motion complains of the admission of certain testimony, objected to by the accused, without stating, however, what the objection made was. While we can conceive of a valid objection to this testimony, we can not, without knowing what the objection which the court overruled was, decide whether the ruling complained of was right or wrong.

3. One ground assigns error because the court, over the objection of counsel for the accused, permitted a witness to testify that the signature upon a document purporting to be a warrant for the arrest of the accused, which the State contended the deceased had in his pocket and was attempting to execute at the time he was killed, was the signature of the magistrate by whom the document purported to have been issued. The ground of the objection was, “that an effort was being made to lay the foundation for the introduction of the paper, that Mr. Eyler [the magistrate] was on the court grounds, that there was higher and better evidence accessible to prove whether or not the signature was that of Mr. Eyler,” and the proof offered was secondary and incompetent. While it may seem rather singular that in a case of this extreme gravity, the State, while insisting that the deceased, at the time that he was killed, had in his possession, and was endeavoring to execute, a warrant for the arrest of the accused, and had been lawfully deputized to make the arrest by the magistrate who issued the warrant, should, in seeking to lay the foundation for the introduction of the paper claimed to be the warrant, have failed to introduce the magistrate by whom it purported to have been issued, when he was so near at hand and when, as the record shows, the judge, during the progress of the trial, informed the counsel in the case that the magistrate was present in the court-room and could be introduced as a witness, yet the objection to the testimony which the State did offer for the purpose [422]*422of proving the genuineness of the warrant was not well taken. The rule of evidence requiring the production of the best evidence obtainable is not violated by permitting the genuineness of a signature to be proved by a witness who is familiar with the handwriting of the person by whom it purports to have been made, without introducing the testimony of such person, although he may be easily accessible at the time such proof is offered. Royce v. Gazan, 76 Ga. 79 (4); Lefferts v. State, 49 N. J. L. 26 (6 Atl. 521); McCaskle v. Amerine, 12 Ala. 17; Smith v. Prescott, 17 Me. 277; Ainsworth v. Greenlee, 1 Hawks (8 N. C.), 190; McCully v. Malcom, 9 Humph. (Tenn.) 187; Foulkes v. Com., 2 Rob. (Va.) 836. In Royce v. Gazan, above cited, objection was made to proving the execution of certain notes and drafts by proving that the signatures of the purported maker of the same were in his handwriting, the objection being that he was present in court and that his evidence would be the best evidence of their execution. It is true that in that case the maker of the notes and drafts was the defendant in the case, and this court held that it would be especially wrong to require a party to call his adversary to prove his own handwriting and thus make that adversary his own witness; but this was merely given as being, in that case, an additional reason for the ruling, that, “If there be no witness to a writing, anybody who knows the handwriting of the maker may prove it.” The identical question made in the present case, that is, whether the genuineness of the signature of a magistrate to a criminal warrant may be shown by' proof of his handwriting by another person, when the magistrate is himself within call at the time of the trial, was made in McCully v. Malcom, supra, and decided in the affirmative. In Ainsworth v. Greenlee, supra, a judgment of a justice of the peace in a criminal case was proved by calling witnesses who were acquainted with his handwriting, although the justice was within reach of the processes of the court.

4. A witness who had examined the body o£ the deceased, about one o’clock in the afternoon of the day he was killed, and who testified that he found the paper purporting to be a warrant for the arrest of Brunswick McCray in an inside'pocket of the coat of the dead man, was asked by counsel for the State, whether, from what he saw and the examination that he made, this paper was in Mr. Warnell’s pocket at the time he was killed. The witness answered: [423]*423“The way the warrant was in there and the way the blood was on it, I don’t see how it could be placed in any other time. In my opinion it was there at the time.” This testimony was objected to upon the ground that the opinion of the witness upon this question was not competent, and the objection was overruled. The court clearly erred in this ruling. This was not a question for opinion evidence. Whether this paper was in the pocket of the deceased, at the time he was killed, as the State contended, or had been subsequently surreptitiously placed there, as seems, to have been the contention of counsel for the accused, was for determination of the jury alone, who were just as competent as the witness to form an opinion, from the facts to which he testified relative to this matter, whether the paper in question was in the pocket of the deceased at the time he was killed. Mayor etc. of Milledgeville v. Wood, 114 Ga. 370 (2), 372 (40 S. E. 239); O’Neill Mfg. Co. v. Harris, 127 Ga. 640 (56 S. E. 739), and cases cited; Brunswick & Birmingham R. co. v. Hoodenpyle, 129 Ga. 174 (5), 175 (58 S. E. 705); Churchill v. Jackson, 132 Ga. 666 (4), 669 (64 S. E. 391).

5. A witness was permitted to testify to a statement made to him by the accused, a few days prior to the homicide, which was to the effect that the Warnells claimed to have an account against him, but he did not owe them anything, and that if any one came after him, to force him to again return to the turpentine farm of the Warnells, where he had been employed as a laborer, “it would be judgment with them.” This testimony was objected to upon the ground that the statement of the accused to the witness was irrelevant, unless it had been communicated to the deceased; that if it had no influence or effect upon the deceased, it could not be material.

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Bluebook (online)
68 S.E. 62, 134 Ga. 416, 1910 Ga. LEXIS 222, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mccray-v-state-ga-1910.