Case ID: ga_50/html/0513-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Warner, Chief Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Joshua Earp, plaintiff in error, vs. The State of Georgia, defendant in error. George Earp, plaintiff in error, vs. The State of Georgia, defendant in error.
    There being no evidence to support the verdict, a new trial will be ordered.
    New trial. Before Judge McCutchen. Bartow Superior Court. September Term, 1873.
    As these cases turn entirely on the evidence, no principle of law being involved, any further report than that contained in the decision would be useless.
    Warren Akin ; A. P. Wofford, for plaintiffs in error.
    A. T. Hackett, Solicitor General, by Peeples & Howell, for the State.
   Warner, Chief Justice.

The defendants, Joshua Earp and George Earp, were jointly indicted for the offense of burglary in the day-time. Tliey^ were tried separately and both found guilty by the jury. A motion was made for a new trial in both cases, which was overruled by the Court, and the defendants excepted. Both cases were argued together here. In looking through the record in each case, we are clearly of the opinion there is no evidence which would have authorized the jury, under the law, to find the defendants guilty of the offense with which they were charged. They may have been guilty, but they were not proved to have been so, and therefore the verdict in both cases was contrary to law. The law does not allow any one to be convicted of any offense merely on a suspicion of their guilt. It would be a just reproach to the judicial tribunals of the State, and to the administration of the laws thereof, to allow a conviction to stand on the evidence contained in the record before us.

Let the judgment of the Court below be reversed in both cases.