Court Opinion

ID: 9865657
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 19:19:18.47779+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:50.009851
License: Public Domain

*623ON MOTION NOB REHEARING.
In' the motion for rehearing counsel state: “Movant contends that the court, in holding and deciding that the jurisdiction of the subject-matter is a jury question, has overlooked the case of Thompson v. State, 47 Ga. App. 229 (4) (170 S. E. 328), in which it is held that the jurisdiction of the subject-matter is for the court and not for the jury.” We have carefully reread the original opinion in the light of this contention. In that opinion we did not intend to give the impression that jurisdiction was a jury question. The motion to set aside the judgment in the instant case was based on evidence which was brought out on cross-examination by counsel for the appellant. Attention was not called to this issue during the progress of the main trial, and the court did not submit it to the jury as a question for them to decide. The instant case is a motion to set aside the verdict and judgment on the ground that this evidence shows that the whole proceeding was void because it showed that no lawful oath was administered, and therefore the whole proceeding was void because the court did not have jurisdiction of the subject-matter. Then it was that the court and not a jury decided that the evidence which appellant relied on was not sufficient to overcome the presumption of law that a legal oath was administered to the witness. We think the trial court was right, but this does not mean that the court submitted this particular issue to a jury. Counsel evidently placed an erroneous construction on our judgment from quotations from certain decisions dealing with the presumption of law in certain cases where the facts did go to the jury. The principle is the same, whether the issue of fact is to be decided by the jury or by the court.

Rehearing denied.

Broyles, G. J., and MacIntyre, J., concur.