Milner v. State

52 S.E. 302, 124 Ga. 86, 1905 Ga. LEXIS 656
Supreme Court of Georgia·Decided November 9, 1905·Published·Cited by 9 cases

Opinion

BeoK, J.

Ralph Milner was tried on an indictment for murder, and convicted. The State proved the corpus delicti by several witnesses, and proved a confession of the defendant by one witness, the sheriff of the county, and also by another witness, one Terrell, that the defendant in jiis statement on a preliminary trial circumstantially and positively admitted and confessed the crime with which he was charged. In the incriminating statement upon the preliminary trial the defendant averred that when he killed the deceased, one Rufe Farley, who at the time was armed with a gun, commanded him to do the act, saying, “Damn you, you have got to kill him, and if you don’t I will kill you;” that when the deceased approached the place near which the killing occurred he said to the defendant, “Hello, Ralph, have you found anything to kill?” to which the defendant replied, “No, sir, I haven’t found anything;” that he then joined the deceased and walked along with him; that Farley came over to where they were and walked “in behind” defendant with his [87] gun cocked; tbat they walked along talking to the deceased, and just before the shooting Farley said to the defendant, “Are you. going to do what you said?” whereupon the defendant raised his gun and shot the deceased “without taking any sight,” the gun being within about two feet of the deceased’s head when he shot; and that after the deceased fell, Eufe Farley beat him with a stick and robbed him. The defendant’s confession was corroborated by proof of the corpus delicti and numerous circumstances attending the commission of the crime. There was nothing to show that more than one other person besides the deceased was present at the killing. The defendant made a statement in substance as follows: “When I shot, I shot at a fish hawk. . . I told Mr. Terrell and Mr. Head that,” referring to his confession, “because I thought that they were trying to. get me out. How I come to believe in Mr. Terrell, he wanted to hire me again in the spring, and I thought he was trying to get me out. He told me he would get me out and wanted me to work for him, and said he would get me a lawyer.” After being convicted the defendant made a motion for a new trial upon several grounds, the first three being the general grounds and the others being as follows: (4) Because “the court erred in permitting the witness Terrell to testify what the boy stated on the next day after this confession was obtained and in the presence of this witness on the preliminary trial, said witness sitting in the court room inside the bar railing.. The testimony of the witness which should not have been allowed to go to the jury is as follows: ‘He went on to tell about his killing Sam J ones. He said on Thursday afternoon he went down in the woods, close to where Sam was killed, and he had his gun and was hunting squirrels. He stayed a while there, sitting on a stump near where he killed old man Sam. Eufe Farley came to him about sundown, and he said that old man Sam Jones was coming down through a piece of corn from the pasture, driving a cow. He said Eufe stepped up to him, and took a cut shell out of his own gun, and put it in Ealph’s gun, and taken a shell out of his pocket and put it in his own gun, and picked up a big red-oak stick, seven or eight feet long and about eight inches round, and said, “Yonder comes a man that owes me money and won’t pay. Damn you, you got to kill, and if you don’t, I will kill you.” He said that old man Sam Jones came along the wood and said: “Hello, Ealph, have you found anything to kill?” He said, “No sir, I haven’t found anything,”" [88] and got up and walked along with him. Eufe Farley came over the upper side of the road, out on the edge of the woods, and walked in behind him with his gun cocked. He went along talking to old man Sam, and got close to where old man Sam was killed, and Rufe said to him, “Are you going to do what you said ?” and Rufe had his gun cocked on him, that he raised his gun and shot him. They asked him if he took any sight, and he said he didn’t, he just raised his gun, he had the gun about two feet of the old man Sam’s head when he shot. As soon as he shot, old man Sam fell, and he broke and run towards his home. He said that Rufe done the beating of him with the stick, and the robbing of him, and such as that.’ Defendant claims that the admission of the above testimony was error, because it was made next day after the confession was obtained from the defendant by promise of reward, and that this testimony [was] made in the presence of the samó man who obtained the previous confession, and was made under the influence of the same promise and in the presence of Terrell, who obtained the first confession.” (5) “Because the court erred in admitting the pocket-book containing some money. There was no evidence that this pocket-book or money were ever in the possession of the deceased, and the admission of it by the court was error, because it injured the defendant, as evidence had been introduced that the old man had been robbed; and the jury would infer, from the court admitting this pocketbook and contents of same, that it had been the property of the deceased and had been taken from him by the defendant.” Defendant further alleges error, in the sixth and seventh grounds of his motion, because the verdict was contrary to the charge of the court. Hpon the overruling of his motion for a new trial he excepted.

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

Milner v. State, 52 S.E. 302, 124 Ga. 86, 1905 Ga. LEXIS 656 (Ga. 1905).

52 S.E. 302 (Milner v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Wright v. State
78 S.E.2d 494 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1953)
Garrett v. State
48 S.E.2d 377 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1948)
Coker v. State
33 S.E.2d 171 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1945)
Bryant v. State
13 S.E.2d 820 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1941)
Jackson v. State
158 S.E. 289 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1931)
King v. State
113 S.E. 107 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1922)
Elder v. State
85 S.E. 97 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1915)