Case Name: Hollis vs. The State of Georgia
Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1886-04-20
Citations: 77 Ga. 74
Docket Number: 
Parties: Hollis vs. The State of Georgia.
Judges: 
Reporter: Georgia Reports
Volume: 77
Pages: 74–74

Head Matter:
Hollis vs. The State of Georgia.
Where, on the trial of an indictment for fornication, the defendant proposed to prove what the prosecutrix had sworn before a justice of the peace in a trial for bastardy, such testimony could only be admissible for the purpose of impeaching the prosecutrix as a witness, and no foundation therefor having been laid by asking if she had so testified, it was properly rejected.
April 20, 1886.
Witness. Evidence. Before Judge Willis. Chattahoochee Superior Court. September Term, 1885.
Reported in the decision.
Leonidas McLester ; Hatcher & Peabody, for plaintiff in error.
Thos. W. Grimes, solicitor general, by J. M. McNeill, for the state.

Opinion:
Blandford, Justice.
The plaintiff was convicted of the offense of fornication. On the trial of the case, the defendant proposed to prove what the prosecutrix had sworn before the justice of the peace in a trial for bastardy. No foundation being laid to impeach the prosecutrix by asking whether she had so testified as they proposed to prove, the court repelled this evidence, and this is the error assigned here.
The testimony offered could only be admitted to impeach the prosecutrix; otherwise, it would be hearsay. A statement of the proposition is a demonstration of it.
Judgment affirmed.