Case ID: ga_70/html/0718-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Jackson, Chief Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Wimbish vs. The State of Georgia.
    1. The evidence of the guilt of the defendant in this case is overwhelming.
    2. A demurrer to the indictment should have been in writing, and shown to have been so, before arraignment; otherwise its overruling on that ground will be affirmed. Code, §4639; 22 Ga., 490, 503, 545, 546; 4116., 484, 500; 60 16., 126. 
    
    3. One question in a criminal case being in regard to the location of a county line, so as to fix the venue, hearsay evidence is admissible. Lines between large tracts of country, as between counties, may be proved by hearsay, reputation or tradition. Vast numbers of people are interested and large interests at stake, and many will know and talk about the lines; what is said and what is handed down from father to son thus becomes evidence to be weighed by the jury; and a charge that such testimony could be considered by the jury, with the other facts and circumstances, to show where the line ran, was not error. Tyler on Boundaries, 296 and citations.
    
      (a.) As to private boundaries the extent of the rule is in question. Tyler on Boundaries, 296 et seq
    
    (6.) In this case no objection was made to the admission of testimony by a witness that he had heard people state where the county line was; but error was assigned in the charge of the court thereon as follows: “If a witness swears positively to a matter, you may take that into consideration; also take into consideration his reasons why he knew where the county line was. County lines are frequently a matter of, you might say, report among neighbors and friends as to where a county line or any other line is; and on those things hearsays are permitted in court. A man may sáy he was told where the line was, and he may say the crime was committed in one county or the other from that. All these circumstances and facts and all others the jury may take into consideration, and say from them whether they are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this man conlmitted the crime in this county.”
    4. The same degree of evidence is necessary to establish the venue in a criminal case as to prove the main ingredients of the crime, but no more.
    
      (a.) In this case the judge charged that the venue must be established beyond a reasonable doubt, and gave the defendant the full benefit of that doctrine. The charge is full, able, clear and comprehensive, and is the law of the case.
    Judgment affirmed.
    March 27, 1883.
    
      
      The demurrer was ore terns, and it did not appear when it was made.
    
   Jackson, Chief Justice.