Court Opinion

ID: 9604584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:23:55.094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:22.867710
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I. respectfully dissent to the majority’s reversal of defendants’ convictions as to Indictment No. 1547 and would affirm the convictions. However, I am in full accord with the majority in the affirmance of defendants’ convictions as to Indictment No. 1548. I concur fully in the majority opinion except for the second paragraph of Division 1 with reference to Indictment No. 1547.
The defendants were jointly indicted on separate indictments and jointly tried for the burning of the two adjoining fishing cabins of two separate persons, although it appears the land was jointly owned by a number of persons. In my view the burning of the second building, as charged in Indictment No. 1547 (both involve arson in the second degree) was a separate incendiary act and not simply included in the crime of the burning of the first building, as charged in Indictment No. 1548. See Code Ann. § 26-1402 (Ga. L. 1968, pp. 1249, 1283; 1976, pp. 1497, 1498; Smith v. State, 122 Ga. App. 882, 884 (179 SE2d 261); Whitten v. State, 143 Ga. App. 768, 771 (240 SE2d 107); Murden v. State, 146 Ga. App. 51 (1) (245 SE2d 363).
I simply cannot agree to the majority opinion in Division 1 that the evidence does not warrant conviction. The enumeration of error is that the trial court erred in denying the defendants’ motion for directed verdict because the testimony of the co-defendant/ co-conspirator was insufficient to support a conviction as to “intentional burning.” The evidence here was ample for the jury to find that the defendants knowingly burned the Keith cabin when they set fire to the Bittingham cabin. Certainly, the jury did not find providential cause or accident but proof of the corpus delicti as to both indictments. The presumption of accidental rather than incendiary origin was clearly overcome by the evidence. See Riddings v. State, 125 Ga. App. 334, 335 (187 SE2d 555). Here it is quite clear that the burning of the second cabin involved a separate crime of arson. It is my observation from a review of the record and transcript that a rational trier of fact (the jury in the case sub judice) could reasonably have found the defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of burning the Keith cabin as well as burning the Bittingham cabin. See in this connection Driggers v. State, 244 Ga. 160, 161 (1) (259 SE2d 133); Moses v. State, 245 Ga. 180, 181 (1) (263 SE2d 916); Sanders v. State, 246 Ga. 42 (1) (268 SE2d 628).
The holding of the majority would allow the burning of an entire city block of homes or even an entire city to be included in but one *190incendiary act Not only is arson a crime mala prohibita but, in my view, a crime mala in se. When any person, by means of fire, knowingly damages any building of another without that other person’s consent, and the fire spreads to other buildings of others which are burned without their consent, the perpetrator should be charged with arson as to each of them.