Court Opinion

ID: 9561555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:11:53.382481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:56.018896
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The appellant contends the trial court erred in allowing the testimony of witnesses whose names had not been previously furnished to defendant’s counsel, and relies upon Code Ann. *283•§ 27-1403, supra. But no demand for a list of said witnesses was made by defendant’s counsel as is provided for in the above statute. First of all, the statute requires that such demand shall be made “previously to his arraignment,” whereas, in the case at bar, the record does not show such demand “previously to his arraignment,” and as is decided in Jones v. State, 224 Ga. 283, 286, supra: “not just any demand is sufficient, it is a demand ‘previous to his arraignment.’ In the present case the only demand shown was upon the call of the case immediately before a jury was selected, presumably after arraignment.” The record in this case shows that such demand as was made was “on arraignment” which term is not sufficiently clear to enable this court to detérmine whether made before, during, or after the actual arraignment of the defendant.
Next, the statute specifically provides that the accused may demand “a list of the witnesses on whose testimony the charge against, him is founded,” whereas in the case at bar there was a substantial departure from the terms of the statute, and, to the contrary, the defendant’s counsel simply wrote upon the back of the indictment itself “demand copy of bill of indictment, list of witnesses sworn before the grand jury.” (Emphasis supplied). The State thereupon furnished a list of the witnesses sworn before the grand jury, and defendant complains because this list did not contain the names of all witnesses who were to be sworn against defendant during the trial of the case before the jury. If defendant had used the language of the statute, to wit, Code Ann. § 27-1403, in making his demand, a different question might arise, but when he limited his demand to those witnesses who were sworn before the grand jury, and did not demand a list of those “on whose testimony the charge against him is founded,” •he thereby restricted and limited the question now presented to this court.
Defendant’s motion for rehearing cites the recent case of Spell v. State, 225 Ga. 705-707 (171 SE2d 285), on this question, but in the cited case the defendant filed “a demand for a list of witnesses for the State” and did not limit the list, as defendant in the case at bar did, to those who testified before the grand jury. In effect, defendant is contending that when he demanded a list *284of those witnesses sworn before the grand jury the State should have furnished such list and should have gone further and furnished a list of any and all other witnesses who might be called at the trial.
The trial court properly decided this question adversely to appellant, in view of the fact that he was furnished a list of those witnesses that he demanded, to wit, a list of those witnesses sworn before the grand jury.

Rehearing' denied.