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Jones v. State

Supreme Court of Georgia
Oct 8, 1970
177 S.E.2d 231 (Ga. 1970)

Opinion

25996.

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 17, 1970.

DECIDED OCTOBER 8, 1970.

Murder. Fulton Superior Court. Before Judge Emeritus Horne.

Walter M. Henritze, Jr., for appellant.

Lewis R. Slaton, District Attorney, Joel M. Feldman, Tony H. Hight, Arthur K. Bolton, Attorney General, Harold N. Hill, Jr., Executive Assistant Attorney General, Marion O. Gordon, Dorothy T. Beasley, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee.


The defendant was convicted for the 1964 murder of Glen Howell and the conviction affirmed on appeal. Jones v. State, 220 Ga. 899 ( 142 S.E.2d 801). Thereafter, pursuant to a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed in Federal court the conviction was set aside and the prisoner remanded to custody for another trial.

A second indictment was returned by the grand jury of Fulton County and on the second trial the defendant was again convicted and the sole enumeration of error complains of the overruling of a motion for autrefois convict and the overruling of a motion for mistrial made during the trial. Held:

1. A motion of autrefois conviction must be in writing and if made orally this alone is a sufficient ground to authorize overruling it. See Code § 27-1501; Brown v. State, 223 Ga. 76, 82 ( 153 S.E.2d 709), and citations.

(a) However, even assuming that the motion in the present case was in writing, no such motion appearing in the record, the trial court properly overruled the same since the prisoner sought the opportunity of going into jeopardy a second time, and the fact that the second trial was based upon a different indictment in no way violated any constitutional or statutory right of the defendant. Compare Pride v. State, 125 Ga. 750, 751 ( 54 S.E. 688); Sims v. State, 221 Ga. 190, 196 ( 144 S.E.2d 103); Massey v. State, 222 Ga. 143 ( 149 S.E.2d 118); Staggers v. State, 225 Ga. 581, 582 ( 170 S.E.2d 430). The first enumeration of error is without merit.

2. Under the decisions in Withrow v. State, 136 Ga. 337 (3) ( 71 S.E. 139); Stanford v. State, 201 Ga. 173 (3) ( 38 S.E.2d 823); Young v. State, 226 Ga. 553, 556 ( 176 S.E.2d 52); and similar cases it was not error to refuse to grant a mistrial after a witness for the State gave an unresponsive answer to a question on direct examination. The question and answer were: Q. "Who first had the gun that morning?" A. "Well, I never did see the gun. I don't know. I think the gun came off of somewhere we had burglarized and was in the car." The jury was properly instructed to disregard the unresponsive answer, and no error appears in this, the sole remaining enumeration of error.

Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 17, 1970 — DECIDED OCTOBER 8, 1970.


Summaries of

Jones v. State

Supreme Court of Georgia
Oct 8, 1970
177 S.E.2d 231 (Ga. 1970)
Case details for

Jones v. State

Case Details

Full title:JONES v. THE STATE

Court:Supreme Court of Georgia

Date published: Oct 8, 1970

Citations

177 S.E.2d 231 (Ga. 1970)
177 S.E.2d 231

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