Short v. State

80 S.E. 8, 140 Ga. 780, 1913 Ga. LEXIS 260
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedNovember 11, 1913
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 80 S.E. 8 (Short 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
Short v. State, 80 S.E. 8, 140 Ga. 780, 1913 Ga. LEXIS 260 (Ga. 1913).

Opinion

Evans, P. J.

(After stating the foregoing facts.)

1. In charging on the law of justifiable homicide the court read to the jury Penal Code §§ 70 and 71. He followed this with an elaboration of the principles of these two sections, explaining that the fears of the slayer must be those of a reasonably courageous man, that the sufficiency of the fears was to be passed on by the jury, and that if there should be a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted under such fears to prevent a felony from being perpetrated on his person hé should be given the benefit of such reasonable doubt. The court then charged on the subject of conspiracy, following with this instruction on the law of self-defense: “If a person kill another in his defense, it must appear that the danger was so urgent and pressing at the time of the killing that in order to save his own life (or prevent a felony being committed upon his person) the killing of another was absolutely necessary; and it must appear also that the person killed was the assailant, or that the slayer had really and in good faith endeavored to decline any further struggle before the mortal blow, was given. If you find that the defendant was surrounded by this urgent and pressing danger at the time of the killing, you will then inquire further: was the deceased the assailant, or did the defendant in good faith endeavor to decline any further struggle before the mortal blow was given? In order to make it justifiable homicide it must appear, first, that there was this urgent and pressing danger to the defendant at the time of the killing, and it must further appear that the person killed was the assailant, or that the defendant in good faith declined or endeavored to decline any further struggle before giving the mortal blow.” The first sentence of this excerpt, except the clause embraced within parenthetical marks, is a literal reproduction of Penal Code § 73. The interpolation of the words included within parenthesis was improper. Was the defendant harmed thereby? It has been held that the court in his instructions on the law of justifiable homicide should not qualify the law of defense of property and person, as defined in §§ 70 and 71, with the principle contained in § 73. Pugh v. State, 114 Ga. 16 (39 S. E. 875). The court did not do this in the present instance. He charged the principle of §§ 70 and 71 in an instruction entirely disassociated from his instruction upon the law embraced in section 73. When charging on section 73 he did not limit or [784]*784qualify his charge on §§ 70 and 71, but merely interpolated a foreign matter which did not essentially change the law of self-defense as defined in § 73. Though the charge is not technically accurate,, we do not think, in view of what has been said, and under the facts of this ease, that a new trial should result on this account.

2. The jury were fully instructed that the burden was on the State to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The excerpt quoted in the second headnote, when considered in connection with its context and the entire charge, is not cause for a new trial on the ground that it implied that the burden of proof was on the defendant to show that he acted in self-defense or in defense of his person.

3. It was not erroneous to charge: “The danger must be imminent or apparently so, and he must not kill upon an imaginary fear. He must have some justification, or somé ground for such fear.” Tolbirt v. State, 124 Ga. 767 (4), 768 (53 S. E. 327).

4. The two defendants were brothers-in-law. They were on the scene of the homicide at the time of its commission. There was evidence that both participated in it, and immediately after its commission they left together. The evidence authorized a charge on the subject of conspiracy, and the charge as given is not open to the criticism that the court expressed an opinion as to the existence of a conspiracy between the two defendants to take the life of the decedent.

5. The law is well settled that one can not create an emergency which renders it necessary for another to defend himself, and then take advantage of the effort of such other person to do so. Price v. State, 137 Ga. 71 (72 S. E. 908). The evidence tended to show that when the defendant accosted the decedent he put his arm in. that of the decedent, and as they turned into the alley the defendant took his pistol from his pocket and while his arm was encircling the back of the decedent, with the muzzle of the pistol under the decedent’s coat collar, fired a bullet into the back of his head. Other shots were fired, and decedent fell to his knees and attempted to defend his life by drawing his pistol and attempting to use it. But before he could use his pistol he was shot again and again by the defendant. If this was the truth of the case (and under the evidence the jury had the right to so find), the defendant could not rightly contend that his last shots were fired in self-defense. Crit[785]*785ieism is made of this language of the court:' “Although a man’s life may be in danger, yet if he is responsible for that danger, then the existence of the danger can not be urged as a defense to himself.” It is insisted that this in effect amounts to an instruction that, without regard to the nature and extent of the provocation, if the defendant was responsible for the danger, he lost his right of self-defense. What the court meant (as clearly shown in the context) by the expression “danger” was an emergency which the defendant created, rendering it necessary for the decedent to defend himself. The quoted excerpt lacked technical accuracy of expression, but in its context was not calculated to mislead the jury. See Roach v. State, 34 Ga. 78, 84.

6. In his statement to the jury the defendant said that he had observed the decedent talking to his wife on several occasions, and that a certain person had informed him that the decedent was trying to create the impression that he was intimate with his wife.He further stated that his wife, a short time prior to the homicide, told him that in January preceding the homicide in April the decedent came by the defendant’s house and spoke to his wife, who was pruning rose bushes in the front yard; that after some conversation the decedent requested a drink of water, and his wife went into the house to get the water; that as she was returning from the kitchen with the water she met the decedent in the dining-room and gave him the glass of water; that the decedent placed it on the table and said he didn’t want water, but he wanted to talk to her and tell her how much he thought of her; that he tried to kiss her, but she repulsed him, and he left the house; and that subsequently he apologized to her for his conduct, but continued to show her attentions, which were discouraged by the wife. Beyond the reference to improper conduct by the decedent towards the defendant’s wife, as contained in the statement of the prisoner, there is nothing in the record indicating the slightest impropriety of conduct on the part of the decedent towards the defendant’s wife. It appears from a note of the presiding judge that the argument of counsel for the defendant and the State in large part dealt with the so-called “unwritten law,” and in view of the defendant’s statement and the argument of counsel he gave the instruction (to which exception is taken) in effect that though it would be justifiable for a husband to slay to prevent the debauchery of his wife, yet, it [786]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
80 S.E. 8, 140 Ga. 780, 1913 Ga. LEXIS 260, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/short-v-state-ga-1913.