Case ID: ga_90/html/0389-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Fletcher v. The State.
    On a trial for arson, the court charged as follows: “ If it appeared to you that the house was feloniously burned; if it further appeared to you that the house was burned in the early morning, and that, on the following night, in the immediate vicinity of such a house, the prisoner was found in possession of goods that were shown to have been in the house on the night immediately preceding the burning of the house; and if he failed to explain in what manner he became possessed of those goods, then you would be authorized, if that evidence was satisfactory to your mind, to find the defendant guilty of arson, the sufficiency and satisfactoriness of the testimony being a question entirely for you.” This was error, although the court elsewhere instructed the jury as follows: “In order to arrive at a correct knowledge of this case, as before stated to you, you must look to the testimony, the entire testimony, and the statement of the prisoner.”
    March 26, 1892. Argued at the last term.
    Before Judge Fort. Sumter superior court. May-term, 1891.
    For a former report of this ease see 85 Ga. 666. See also a later report among the cases of the October term, 1892, in this volume.
    L. J. Blalock, for plaintiff in error.
    W. A. Little, attorney-general, by J. II. Lumpkin, and C. B. Hudson, solicitor-general, contra.
    
   Judgment reversed.