Case ID: ga-app_85/html/0701-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Townsend, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

33970.
    Futch et al. v. The State.
    Decided March 19, 1952.
    
      Edward J. Goodwin, J. P. Dukes, for plaintiffs in error.
    
      Walton XJsher, Solicitor-General, contra.
    Otis Futch and James Goethe were indicted in the Superior Court of Effingham County for larceny of a cow.. The evidence showed that the animal had been shot and was lying dead about 200'feet from the road;, that the defendants were about 75 feet from the cow as a witness passed; that they came running back to the car and immediately drove away; that the trunk of the car was open; that the witness examined the cow and found it freshly shot and still bleeding; that the defendants drove by twice more without stopping, and the witness took the license number of their car. Police officers on investigation first talked with the defendant Futch, who denied having a gun in the car. They then talked to Goethe, who reminded his codefendant that there was a gun in the car, and Futch then admitted this. Upon being questioned about the gun, Goethe immediately asked, “Was the cow shot?” although no cow had been mentioned up to that time. The defendants first denied having been in the vicinity, but later admitted that they had driven by the place where the cow was shot, claiming only that they had been drunk and had run the car into a ditch.
    The jury returned a verdict of guilty of an attempt to commit the felony. The defendants filed a motion for a new trial on the general grounds only.
   Townsend, J.

“An incriminating statement is one freely and voluntarily made by the accused, which only tends to establish his guilt of the offense charged, or one from which, together with other proven facts and circumstances, guilt may be inferred by the jury. Fletcher v. State, 90 Ga. 468 (17 S. E. 100); Riley v. State, supra [1 Ga. App. 651, 57 S. E. 1031].” Pressley v. State, 201 Ga. 267, 270 (39 S. E. 2d, 478). The incriminating statement of one of the defendants here, betraying knowledge that a cow had been killed, together with evidence as to the defendants’ presence at the time of the killing, their flight, their possession of a firearm, their conduct subsequent to the killing of the cow, showing an intent to steal the same, contradictory .statements in explanation thereof, and other circumstances, were sufficient to authorize the verdict of guilty. See Tinker v. State, 125 Ga. 743 (54 S. E. 662); Cross v. State, 64 Ga. 443.

Judgment affirmed,.

Gardner, P.J., and Carlisle, J., concur.