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Hudgins vs. The State of Georgia

Supreme Court of Georgia1878-08
61 Ga. 182

Summary

Holding. The judgment is affirmed. The defendant's conviction for assault with intent to murder was proper; the jury instructions on conspiracy were authorized by the evidence, the juror impartiality claim lacked merit, the newly discovered testimony was not truly new, and the court had jurisdiction to continue the trial into the following week.

Hudgins was tried and convicted of assault with intent to murder alongside two others. The evidence showed that two men attacked the victim together, with one using a knife and the other striking blows, both fleeing the scene after leaving the victim severely wounded. Hudgins moved for a new trial on several grounds, contending that the court improperly instructed the jury on conspiracy, that a juror was biased, that newly discovered testimony from his co-defendant should have warranted a new trial, and that the court lacked jurisdiction when it adjourned from one county to finish the case in another.

The court upheld the conviction on all grounds. The factual circumstances—two men acting in concert to attack the victim—clearly supported a jury instruction on joint liability and conspiracy. The claim of juror bias failed because the juror had been sworn as impartial, and competing oaths are resolved by applying the equal-weight rule. The newly discovered evidence that the co-defendant would testify to committing the entire assault was not genuinely new; Hudgins, having been present at the crime, already knew these facts and could have called the co-defendant as a witness at trial. The court had proper jurisdiction to continue into Monday because the judge was presumed to have adjourned the other county's court, which was within the judge's statutory authority and consistent with longstanding practice.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Whether evidence of two men acting together in an assault supports a jury instruction on conspiracy and joint liability
  • Whether competing oaths regarding juror impartiality require a new trial
  • Whether newly discovered testimony from a co-defendant constitutes grounds for a new trial when the defendant had access to that witness at trial
  • Whether a court lacks jurisdiction to continue a trial into an adjournment week of a different county

Procedural posture

The defendant, convicted at trial of assault with intent to murder, moved for a new trial on multiple grounds, which the trial court overruled; he appealed and the appellate court considered his various exceptions.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Jackson, Justice.

The defendant, with two others, was indicted for an assault with intent to murder. He was put on trial alone, convicted, and moved for a new trial on various grounds, which were overruled, and he excepted.

The first ground respects the charge, and is to the effect that the facts did not authorize the court to charge on the subject of a conspiracy and concert of action between the three, or two of the three, men who were indicted together. The facts, we think, authorized the charge. The two men were together, they ran upon the prosecutor together, and assaulted him behind him, both struck him, one used a knife, the other probably some hard instrument, and both ran off together, leaving him about midnight in the darkness nearly dead, stabbed with the knife in several places, and the blade stuck in his back with such force as to adhere to the bone, and to require the best ¡effort of a strong man, after several trials, to pull it out. The hand of one knocked him down, that of -the other did the stabbing. If believed, these facts make a conspiracy or joint attempt to murder; and -the credibility of the witnesses is for the jury. If -the facts be true, both are guilty of the assault with intent to murder, no matter who actually stabbed; and the court was right to leave the common intent and conspiracy to the jury under the facts.

The next ground is that ’a juror was not impartial. The only evidence of it is his sayings to one person sworn to by him. He had sworn -that he was perfectly impartial, and the rule is that one oath is as good as another. In 19 Ga., 102, it was so ruled in-a murder-case,-and where the expression of opinion was as strong‘as it is possible ¡to make it. That case covers this all fours on this point.

The next ground relates to newly discovered testimony. It is the testimony of the accomplice, who, after his plea of guilty, was willing to testify that he did all -the beating and stabbing, and that his co-defendant did none of it.

They severed; he could have been sworn on the trial. Hudgins knew what -the facts were, because he was present at the assault, and all the newly discovered evidence that the co-defendant was ready now to swear -to, occurred in Hudgins’ presence. If these facts were true, why did he not swear him on the trial? The only reason is, that the co-defendant would have sworn a lie, if put up then until his own case was decided; if he would have sworn a lie then, there is no reason why he would not again. At all events, the defendant Hudgins ought to have had him sworn. The dis covery of the willingness of a witness to swear to what defendant knew that the witness knew, and when he was accessible and in court, is not the discovery of new testimony-in the sense of the law, but merely of change of mind in the co-defendant. The main object of severing is to have the evidence of each for the other; and when it is not had if accessible, there is no diligence.

The court, not being able to complete the trial on Sat: nrday night, adjourned to Monday; and Monday was the day fixed by law for Fulton court. The defendant says, as the court could not sit at two places at one time in one circuit, that it had no jurisdiction in DeKalb on Monday.

The reply is, that the judge is presumed to have had the clerk to adjourn Fulton court until he finished this case in DeKalb, as the law. empowered to be done.

The practice has been in accordance with Judge Hillyer’s course, time out of mind; and it would block the administration of the law in many cases, if it were otherwise. Oases sometimes take two or three days over the week allowed ordinarily for the court in one county, and the law and practice have ever been, so far as we know, to hold on to complete the unfinished case in the one county, and to adjourn the court in the other, under the statute, to await the arrival of the judge.

The evidence makes a very bad case against the negro who did the actual stabbing; and an ugly case against Hudgins, to say the least of it. The evidence is ample to convict both ; and the jury having passed on the facts, and the judge presiding having sustained their finding, we are not at liberty under the law to interfere.

The trial was fair and the charge full and impartial.

Judgment affirmed.