Waldrop v. State

144 S.E.2d 372, 221 Ga. 319, 1965 Ga. LEXIS 447
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedSeptember 9, 1965
Docket23049
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 144 S.E.2d 372 (Waldrop 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
Waldrop v. State, 144 S.E.2d 372, 221 Ga. 319, 1965 Ga. LEXIS 447 (Ga. 1965).

Opinions

Candler, Presiding Justice.

Charles Waldrop, Sammy R. Farmer and Charles Stephens were jointly indicted in Clayton County for robbery. The indictment alleges that they, together with James Kilgore and O’Neal Williams entered into a conspiracy with each other to rob the Harris Supermarket; that pursuant to such conspiracy, the robbery was accomplished on February 29, 1964, and $5,710 was taken by intimidation and by use of offensive weapons from such place of business; that James Kilgore and O’Neal Williams were the actual perpetrators of the robbery; but this defendant, Sammy R. Farmer and Charles Stephens did procure, counsel and induce them to perpetrate the robbery and did in [320]*320specified ways aid and abet them in its commission, though not actually present at the time and place of its commission. Waldrop was tried separately. He was convicted of robbery by use of an offensive weapon and was sentenced to serve a prison term. His amended motion for a new trial was overruled and he excepted to that judgment. Held:

1. To authorize a felony conviction on the testimony of an accomplice, it is necessary that the evidence of the accomplice be corroborated (Code § 38-121), and “the corroborating circumstances should be such as, independently of his testimony, to lead to the inference that the defendant is guilty.” McCalla v. State, 66 Ga. 346; Callaway v. State, 151 Ga. 342 (106 SE 577); Langston v. State, 153 Ga. 127 (3) (111 SE 561); Whaley v. State, 177 Ga. 757 (2) (171 SE 290); and Jackson v. State, 219 Ga. 819 (136 SE2d 375). 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 SE 164); Rawlins v. State, 124 Ga. 31, 49 (52 SE 1); Mitchell v. State, 202 Ga. 247 (3) (42 SE2d 767). In the present case the jury was authorized to find that the evidence of the alleged accomplice was sufficiently corroborated.

(a) Where two or more persons enter into a conspiracy to commit a penal offense and in furtherance of the conspiracy the offense is committed, all of the conspirators who act together in consummating the object of the conspiracy are guilty though some be absent at the time and place of its commission. Gore v. State, 162 Ga. 267 (134 SE 36).

Since the evidence of the State’s witness Farmer shows that this defendant actively participated in the commission of the alleged robbery and that his evidence was sufficiently corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses and by the de[321]*321fendant’s statement to the jury, there is no merit in the general grounds of the motion for new trial.

2. The amendment to defendant’s motion for new trial contains 14 special grounds, but grounds 2, 4, 5 and 13 thereof have been expressly abandoned and ground 3 has not been argued either orally or by written brief. This being true, they will not be considered or ruled upon.

3. In his opening remarks to the jury, the solicitor general stated: “The State expects to prove that the defendants Waldrop, Stephens and Sammy Farmer attempted on different occasions to commit a robbery other than the one charged in the indictment.” When this statement was made, counsel for the accused moved for a mistrial on the ground that such statement put the character of the accused “in issue before this jury.” Respecting this motion the court said: “I am not going to make a final decision on this, depending upon the evidence in the case, because I say it is possible for that information to be related to the jury under the propér setting and circumstances. . . I assume that the solicitor is going to place this evidence before the jury in the proper manner and proper sequence, but if he does not, then I will grant this motion.” After the State finished introducing evidence, this motion for a mistrial was neither renewed nor ruled on, and since it was not, this special ground of the motion presents no question for determination by this court. In this State a judgment by inference or implication is not reviewable by an appellate court. Amos v. Amos, 212 Ga. 753 (95 SE2d 687); Hardin v. Homeyer, 213 Ga. 321 (4) (99 SE2d 136).

4. While Sammy Farmer, a witness for the State, was being directly examined by the solicitor general, he was asked: “When you all were making this trip back to Georgia, what if anything was said about this job [robbery of Harris Supermarket] that they had to do where they were known too well?” He answered: “Well, it was not mentioned, they were too busy it seemed like having the time of their life, laughing and telling first one thing and another about how they cheated so and so. Take, for instance, about the time they went into this hotel and running up a big bill and stayed there maybe two days and leaving at 5 in the morning or 4 in the morning and telling the fellow or lady downstairs that they were expecting an important phone call and that they would be back at 6 and to tell the person if they called that [322]*322they would be back at exactly 6 and walk out and leave without paying the bill or nothing.” Immediately after this question was asked and answered, counsel for the defendant moved for a mistrial on the ground that the latter portion of Farmer’s answer which related to other acts and conduct of the defendant put his character in evidence when he had not elected to do so. The motion for a mistrial was overruled and special ground 9 of the motion for new trial alleges that this ruling was erroneous and harmful to the accused. There is no merit in this contention. That portion of the answer on which the motion for a mistrial was based was not in response to the question the solicitor general propounded the witness Farmer; and since it was not, counsel for the defendant should have moved to rule it out of evidence and for an instruction to the jury to give it no consideration in its determination of the defendant’s guilt of the offense for which he was being tried. In this connection see Burns v. State, 191 Ga. 60 (9), 74 (11 SE2d 350); Carrigan v. State, 206 Ga. 707 (3) (58 SE2d 407).

5. Special ground 10 of the motion for new trial alleges that the court erred in overruling defendant’s motion to strike or rule out the testimony of E. E. Peppers, a police officer and a witness for the State. His motion was: “Your Honor please, I would like to make a motion to strike all of Capt. Peppers’ testimony on this occasion because he has been allowed to sit here at the counsel table and hear all of the witnesses testify and has testified himself and has heard all of the State’s evidence and has not been properly sequestered and we have been denied our constitutional rights by the State of Georgia to allow him to testify and after he has heard everybody else testify and I make a motion to strike out his testimony from the record on the constitutional grounds that we have been denied the proper sequestration of the witness.” Special ground.

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Bluebook (online)
144 S.E.2d 372, 221 Ga. 319, 1965 Ga. LEXIS 447, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/waldrop-v-state-ga-1965.