Case ID: ga_48/html/0454-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "McCay, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

F. H. Hall, plaintiff in error, vs. The State of Georgia, defendant in error.
    (Atlanta,
    January Term, 1873.)
    Criminal Law — Evidence—Res Gestae — Case at Bar. — F. H.. Flail was tried upon an indictment containing two counts, one for assault with intent to murder, and one for shooting at another, not in his (the prisoner’s) own defense. On-the trial it was proposed to prove by the defense as a part of the res gestae, the prisoner’s statement, as to how he received a certain bruise on his arm. The statement was made some ten or twelve minutes after the shooting, after the difficulty was entirely over, after the prisoner had been arrested, and whilst he was in charge of the bailiff on his way to prison:
    Held, That it was not error in the Court to reject the statement.
    Criminal law. Res gestae. Evidence. Before Judge Hopkins. Eulton Superior Court. April Term, 1872.
    Hall was placed upon trial for the offense of an assault with intent to commit murder, alleged to have been perpetrated upon the person of one Thomas Cushman, on December 5th, 1871. The indictment also contained a count charging defendant with the offense of shooting at said Cushman, not in his own defense, nor under circumstances of justification. The defendant pleaded not guilty.
    During the trial the defendant proposed to prove by Thomas *Newman, the officer who arrested him, as a part of the res gestae, his statements made some ten or twelve minutes after the shooting, on his way to the city guard-house, as to the circumstances under which he received an injury to his arm, which he then and there exhibited.
    The Court excluded the evidence, and the defendant excepted.
    The jury returned a verdict of guilty on the second count. Whereupon, the defendant moved for a new trial, upon the ground, amongst others, that the Court erred in his exclusion of the testimony of the witness, Newman, as to his statements on the way to the guard-house.
    The motion was overruled, and the defendant excepted.
    Gartreee & Stephens; T. P. Westmoreland, for plaintiff in error.
    John T. Glenn, Solicitor General, for the State.
    The time between the shooting and the sayings of the defendant was too long to make it admissible: 27 Georgia, 296; 11 Ibid., 615. The joinder of the counts was proper: 43 Georgia, 518; 27 Ibid., 723.
    
      
      Criminal Law — Evidence—Res Gestae — Case at Bar. — In the case of Sullivan v. State, 101 Ga. 800, 29 S. E. Rep. 16, the defense sought to introduce evidence to the effect that, five or six minutes after the homicide the defendant after running some distance called a police-mail and stated to him that he was crowded by a lot of negroes, and that he had to shoot in self defense. The court held that such declaration did not constitute a part of the res- geste of the homicide. Citing with approval the principal case.
      Same — Same—Same.—After the cessation of a fight, which occurred in the immediate vicinity of a dwelling house of the deceased, he entered the house and said to his wife “he ought to have fought me fair, and ought not to have hit me with a rock,’’ this was within a very short time after the fight. The court admitted it as a part of the res geste. Dill v. State, 106 Ga. 685, 32 S. E. Rep. 660, citing with approval the principal case.
      Same — Same—Same.—While time is an important element to consider in determining what sayings constitute part of the res gestae of any transaction, yet it is by no means the only thing tó be considered. Thornton v. State, 107 Ga. 686, 33 S. E. Rep. 673, citing with approval the principal case.
      Same — Same—Same.—“The plaintiff, a passenger upon a railway, who left the train late at night, and in so doing (as he alleges) was injured by a fall which broke his leg, having pulled off his coat, detached his suspenders, bound up his broken limb, crawled through a culvert from one side of the railway to the other, seated himself on the cross ties, and cried for help, his account of the manner of his leaving the train and receiving the injury, given to a person who reached him about half an hour after first hearing his cries, was no part of the res gestee, and being mere narrative of a past event, was not admissible evidence in his own behalf.” Savannah, etc., R. Co. v. Holland, 82 Ga. 257, 10 S. E. Rep. 200, citing with approval the principal case.
      Same — -Same—Same.—See generally, the title Res Gestae. Ency. Dig. Ga. Rep., vol. 11, pp. 303, 304.
    
   McCay, Judge.

The res gestae of a transaction is what is done during the progress of it, or so nearly upon the actual occurrence as fairly to be treated as cotemporaneous with it. No precise point of time can be fixed a priori where the res gestae ends. Each case turns on its own circumstances. Indeed, the inquiry is rather into events than into the precise time which has elapsed. Is the proof offered of a matter fairly a part of the same transaction? Is it an event happening naturally and spontaneously as a part of the occurrence under investigation? If so, the law permits it to be proven as part of it, since the whole scene, as it has transpired, ought to appear to the tribunal called upon to determine its character. Matters occurring before or after, that is, before the transaction begun or *after it ended, are not part of it. To make them such, they must be so nearly connected with the actual occurrence as to be without the suspicion of afterthought or forethought: Rev. Code, section 3720. They must be within the shadow, as it were, of the transaction itself. Is that so in this case? The quarrel was over, some minutes had elapsed, the parties had separated. The prisoner had been arrested. He had waited at the cloak room for his over-coat, in charge of the officer; that had been obtained, and the officer and he had gone some one hundred and fifty yards, towards the guard-house. The occurrence was over — completely over. New events had occurred, and what the prisoner said can, by no fair inference, be made part of the event in which this shooting occurred. It is not so closely connected with the event as to be free from all suspicion of afterthought or device. Indeed, there seems to us no reason why any statement made by him at any time is not admissible if this is. It has, to one hearing it, no force, except that given to it by its reasonableness or by the manner of the narrator, or his character. As such matter, the prisoner could have made it on his trial. But it has not, in our judgment, any force as a part of the spontaneous acts going to make up the whole transaction, at the time, nor is so closely connected with the occurrence as to be without the suspicion of afterthought.

Judgment affirmed.