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MIKA, alias GNATEK, v. THE STATE; MIKA, alias KOZIELEC, v. THE STATE

Supreme Court of Georgia1943-07-07No. Nos. 14580, 14581
196 Ga. 473

Summary

Holding. The judgment is affirmed. The Supreme Court had jurisdiction over the capital felony conviction for robbery by open force and violence, the trial court properly charged the jury and refused the motion for new trial, and the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict.

Two defendants were convicted under a single verdict of robbery by force and violence during the same trial. The Georgia Supreme Court had jurisdiction because robbery by open force and violence carries a potential death penalty, making it a capital felony. The evidence was sufficient to support the conviction: the defendants admitted attacking police officers and forcibly taking their automobile while being transported from Florida to Georgia for trial on an unrelated charge, explaining only that they feared receiving a lengthy sentence and wanted to escape.

The trial judge properly instructed the jury by summarizing the State's contentions based on testimony while making clear that guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge also did not commit error by declining to provide a special instruction on the law of confessions, since the defendants did not request one in writing as required by statute. The trial court correctly refused to grant a new trial based on the defendants' exceptions.

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

Key issues

  • Jurisdictional scope of Georgia Supreme Court over capital felony convictions
  • Sufficiency of evidence for robbery by force and violence conviction
  • Propriety of trial court's jury instructions summarizing State's theory
  • Requirement of written request for jury instruction on confessions law

Procedural posture

The defendants appealed by writ of error from their convictions of robbery by open force and violence, challenging the trial court's jurisdiction, jury instructions, and refusal to grant a new trial.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Jenkins, Justice.

1. These eases, which involve convictions under one verdict in the same trial, and with the same exceptions, are decided together.

2. The Supreme Court, rather than the Court of Appeals, has jurisdiction of these writs of error under an indictment for robbery by open force and violence (Ga. L. 1937, pp. 490, 491; Code Supp., § 26-2502), since the statute imposes the death penalty unless the jury shall recommend mercy as provided, and the constitution gives exclusive jurisdiction to this court of writs of error in all “cases of conviction of a capital felony.” Code, § 2-3005. Jurisdiction turns, not on what punishment is actually imposed, but on whether a conviction is had “ of a capital felony.” Thus this court has jurisdiction of the bill of exceptions where one is convicted of murder, even though under the jury’s recommendation the defendant is sentenced only to life imprisonment; whereas when under a murder indictment one is convicted, not of murder, but of a lower grade of homicide such as manslaughter, this court is without jurisdiction, since the defendant has not been convicted of the capital felony as charged. Cœsar v. State, 127 Ga. 710, 712 (57 S. E. 66); Dawson v. State, 130 Ga. 127, 133 (60 S. E. 315). See Reams v. State, 24 Ga. App. 135 (100 S. E. 230), and cit.; Simpson v. State, 12 Ga. App. 292 (3) (77 S. E. 105). The cases here involved were not robbery by intimidation under the Code, §§ 26-2501, 26-2503, which is punishable by -imprisonment for not less than two years nor more than twenty years, and the jurisdiction of which is therefore in the Court of Appeals. Meri wether v. State, 189 Ga. 746 (2, 3) (8 S. E. 2d, 72). Here the indictment charged that the robbery was committed not only “fraudulently” but “by force and violence” and “with force and arms,” and the judge thus correctly construed the indictment in charging the jury, and in not submitting to them any issue as to robbery by intimidation. See Harris v. State, 191 Ga. 243, 253 (12 S. E. 2d, 64).

Nos. 14580, 14581.

July 7, 1943.

Rehearing denied July 19, 1943.

3. The general grounds are neither argued nor insisted upon. Moreover, essential evidence for the State, which is set forth in the special grounds excepting to certain charges, authorized the verdict, was not rebutted, and each of the defendants in his statement to the jury admitted .the alleged attack on the police officers while being taken in the officers’ automobile from Florida back to Georgia for trial on another indictment. They admitted the taking of the automobile by force, as charged in the present indictment, coupled merely with a statement that they did this because they were seared and wanted to escape from the other trial, after other persons had told the defendants that they “would get fifteen or twenty years for what [they had] done in Georgia.”

4. The judge did not err in briefly stating the contentions of the State according to some of its testimony, and in thus slightly elaborating the general language of the indictment, where such instruction was fairly given, did not misstate such testimony, did not state these contentions as facts, and was not opinionative or argumentative; especially where such charge was immediately followed by an instruction that this “contention upon the part of the State must be supported by evidence to your satisfaction, beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the defendants, before you would be authorized to convict the defendants, or either of them, under this indictment.” Pritchett v. State, 92 Ga. 65 (7), 74 (18 S. E. 536); Screven v. State, 169 Ga. 384 (4), 390 (150 S. E. 558); Millen & Southwestern R. Co. v. Allen, 130 Ga. 656, 658 (61 S. E. 541), and cit.; City & Suburban Ry. v. Findley, 76 Ga. 311 (3), 317; Thomas v. State, 95 Ga. 484 (3), 488 (22 S. E. 315); Nelson v. State, 124 Ga. 8 (52 S. E. 20), and cit.; Brown v. State, 6 Ga. App. 356, 360 (64 S. E. 1119); Smith v. State, 24 Ga. App. 654 (2, a) (101 S. E. 764); Plummer v. State, 28 Ga. App. 475, 476 (111 S. E. 691); Wilkes v. State, 16 Ga. App. 185, 187, 188 (84 S. E. 721); Johnson v. State, 27 Ga. App. 668 (4) (109 S. E. 508); Griffin v. State, 34 Ga. App. 526, 528 (130 S. E. 368), and cit.

5. “In the absence of a written request, it is not error requiring a.reversal for the judge to fail to instruct the jury upon the law of confessions,” as set forth in the Code, § 38-420. Patterson v. State, 124 Ga. 408 (2), 410 (52 S. E. 534); Walker v. State, 118 Ga. 34 (3) (44 S. E. 850); Lindsay v. State, 138 Ga. 818 (6), 822 (76 S. E. 369); Cantrell v. State, 141 Ga. 98 (2) (80 S. E. 649); Benjamin v. State, 150 Ga. 78 (102 S. E. 427); Brantley v. State, 154 Ga. 80 (3) (113 S. E. 200), and cit.; Gore v. State, 162 Ga. 267 (3) (134 S. E. 36).

6. Under the foregoing rulings, the court properly refused a new trial.

Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur.

James R. Venable, F. Joe Turner, and Frank A. Bowers, for plaintiffs in error.

T. Grady Head, attorney-general, Frank B. Willingham, solicitor-general, L. G. Groves, assistant attorney-general, contra.