Case ID: ga-app_32/html/0781-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Luke, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

15731.
    Gilley v. The State.
    Decided October 7, 1924.
    Accusation of misdemeanor; from city court of Nashville — Judge W. E. Smith. June 7, 1924.
    From the evidence it appears that Joe Fletcher, whom it was alleged the defendant attempted to entice to leave his employer, was a cropper on the farm of Mrs. W. E. Gibbs in the year 1920. The husband of Mrs. Gibbs testified: “Some time about October 1, I saw C. 0. Gilley [the defendant] come out to my wife’s place in a car; there was another white man with him. He drove up to Joe Fletcher and some other hands on the place. He drove in and went up to where Pete Hailey’s family lived. In a little while he came back and stopped there where Joe Fletcher was, and I did not hear anything that they said.” Joe Fletcher testified: “Mr. C. 0. Gilley came out to this place [the farm of Mrs. Gibbs] about October 1, 1920, and stopped where I was with a crowd of the hands on the place. He asked the way to where Pete' Hailey’s folks lived. He went to where they lived. . . In a little while he came back and I met him in the road. There was a white man with him, and he stopped and asked me didn’t I want to go to Oklahoma. He said I could get $2.50 a hundred for cotton. I said I did not want to go, as I could not pick cotton. I am not a cotton-picker. I could get $1 to $1.25 here for picking cotton.” Another witness testified that he was present with Fletcher when the defendant inquired the way to where Pete Hailey’s folks lived, and that he did not say anything to Fletcher or the rest about going to Oklahoma, but that he (the witness) “was not there as he came back by.”. Another witness testified that at the time mentioned the defendant, after inquiring where Pete Hailey’s folks lived, said that Pete Hailey had sent them some money, to come to Oklahoma, but he did not say anything to “us” about going to Oklahoma. The defendant, in his statement at the trial, said: “Pete Hailey was living in Oklahoma and Ire wanted me to bring some money to his folks to come to Oklahoma. . . I got Homer Bolton to drive me out . . to where his family lived. I stopped where there was a bunch of negroes and asked where Pete Hailey lived. I did not say anything about going to Oklahoma. I carried the money up there, and when I came back I did not 'say anything to Joe Fletcher or anybody else about going to Oklahoma; and that is all I know about it.” There was other testimony, but none of it was as to an attempt by the defendant to entice Fletcher from the service of Mrs. Gibbs.
   Luke, J.

Gilley was convicted upon an accusation which charged him with enticing away and attempting to entice a laborer whc was under contract with his employer (Penal Code of 1910, § 125). The evidence was insufficient to authorize the conviction, and the court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial!

Judgment reversed.

Broyles, G. J., and Bloodworlh, J., concur.

C. A. Christian, W. D. Buie, for plaintiff in error,

cited: 122 Ga. 744; 27 Ga. App. 269; 2 Ga. App. 143-4.

Dewey Knight, solicitor, 12. A. Hendricks, contra,

cited: 4 Ga. App. 333; Penal Code (1910), § 125.