Case ID: ga_50/html/0636-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Warner, Chief Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Charles Kelly, relator, vs. John I. Hall, Judge, respondent.
    It Would require a very strong case to authorize this Court to grant a mandamus to compel the Judge of the Superior Court to sign and certify a bill of exceptions to its judgment in overruling a second motion for a new trial, after the ease had been heard before this Court and a new trial refused.
    Practice before the Supreme Court. Mandamus. New-trial. Rill of exceptions. Before the Supreme Court. January Term, 1874.
    Charles Kelly petitioned the Supreme Court for a mandamus nisi requiring Honorable John I. Hall, Judge of the Superior Courts of the Flint Circuit, to show cause why he should not be compelled by a rule absolute to sign and certify a bill of exceptions to his judgment refusing a new trial in the case of the State against petitioner, who was charged with the offense of murder.
    It appeared from the petition that Kelly was convicted of the offense of murder at the September adjourned term, 1872, of Newton Superior Court; that a motion for a new trial was made and overruled, and that said judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court; that, at the September adjourned term, 1873, a second motion was made for a new trial, on the ground that Hulbert Brown, a material witness for the State, since the trial, had made an affidavit to facts differing from his testimony given in from the stand, and tending to sustain the alibi relied upon by petitioner, and because of certain irregularities in the conduct of the jury.
    The motion was overruled. A bill of exceptions to this judgment was presented to the presiding Judge, who returned it, with the following entry thereon :
    
      “ My signature and certificate to the within bill of exceptions is refused, this being the second motion for a new trial in the case, and the evidence herein contained showing plainly that no harm could possibly have resulted to the defendant from the irregularities complained of.”
    
      A. M. Speer; J. J. Floyd, for tlie relator.
    No appearance for respondent.
   Warner, Chief Justice.

This is an application for a mandamus to compel the Judge of the Superior Court to sign and certify a bill of exceptions to the judgment of that Court in overruling a second motion for a new trial. The granting or refusing the mandamus prayed for must necessarily rest in the sound legal discretion of this Court: Harris vs. The State, 2 Kelly’s Reports, 290; Malone vs. The State, decided at the last term. It would require a very strong case, indeed, to authorize this Court to grant a mandamus to compel the Judge of the Superior Court to sign and certify a bill of exceptions to its judgment in overruling a second motion for a new trial after the case has been heard before this Court and a new trial refused — much stronger than the one made by the facts alleged in this application.

Let the judgment refusing the application be entered on the minutes of the Court.