Case ID: ga-app_11/html/0723-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Russell, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

4014.
    Williams v. The State.
    Decided October 22, 1912.
    Indictment for breaking and entering, etc.; from Crawford superior court — Judge Felton. January 17, 1912.
    Williams was convicted under an indictment charging him and Isaiah Clayton with having broken and entered a railroad car and stolen certain meat from it. He moved for a new trial, alleging that the verdict was contrary to law and the evidence; the motion was overruled, and he excepted. According to the evidence, the car was broken and entered and the meat stolen at the time and place alleged, and, about three days later, most of the meat was found near that place, at the house of Isaiah Clayton. The persons who made this discovery went also to the house of Williams, and one of them (who described himself as a special officer of the railway company) exhibited to Williams a warrant to search his premises, 'and they went to his store, with his wife, who unlocked the door. While she was kneeling behind the counter this “special officer” saw her stick a piece of ham in her bosom and start out, and he told the sheriff to catch her, that she had a piece of meat in her bosom; she denied that she had it, and made some resistance before she gave it up. This meat and the meat found at Clayton’s house bore the stencil marks of the same 'packing house. Williams was then asked where he got this piece of meat, 'and replied that a tramp gave it to him for his wife to cook some breakfast. About .an hour later, when Clayton had been arrested, Williams said that he got it from Clayton. Williams’s boy, who was at .his house when the officers came, ran off while they were there. Clayton was a son-in-law and neighbor of Williams. Clayton testified that he found the meat at the side of the railroad, and gave a piece of it to Williams’s wife, but did not tell her where he got it, and that Williams did not know about the meat he had found. Tracks of two persons led from the railroad' to a point between 50 and 100-yards from the houses of Clayton and Williams; there were no peculiarities about the tracks; they were of the same size. Two other negro men lived near these men. Several witnesses testified to the good character of Williams.
   Russell, J.

The circumstances adduced in evidence by the State were insufficient to authorize the conclusion that the defendant was guilty.

Judgment reversed.

H. A: Mathews, R. H. Oulverhouse, for plaintiff in error,

cited: 5 Ga. App. 228; 6 Ga. App. 778; 2 Ga. App. 492, 620; 4 Ga. App. 273; 123 Ga. 534.

Walter J. Grace, solicitor-general, contra.