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104 Ga. 738

Teasley v. State

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided July 20, 1898

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1898-07-20

Indictment for murder. Before Judge Reese. Elbert superior court. March term, 1898. On the trial of Ed. Teasley for murder, Joe McDuffie testified: On February 28, 1898, Dave Harris, Peter Blackwell and I started together to take a ride, and rode to Ed. Teasley’s. In the afternoon Dave and Ed. shot crap from 3 until 10 o’clock at night. Dave got most of the money; they had some trouble over the game. At the time of the killing Dave and Ed. had a fuss in the house.

Relies on Powell v. State · Adams v. State · Broom v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1898-07-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently May 1985

20 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Lumpkin, P. J.

¶1If a man who is himself free from fault kills another “in self-defense, or in defense of habitation, property, or person, against one who manifestly intends or endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a felony on either,” or if the killing be done for the bona fide purpose of preventing any one of these offenses and under circumstances sufficient to excite the fears of a reasonable man, the slayer’s justification is complete without showing that, “in order to save his own life, the killing of the other was absolutely necessary.” Where, however, a fight has been begun and carried on in hot blood, both parties being at fault, and one of them is slain, the other can not justify the killing without showing that it was necessary. These are not new views as to the meaning and purpose of the sections of the Penal Code referred to in the headnote. They have been often considered and discussed. The following are a few only of the pertinent cases: Killen v. State, 50 Ga. 230; Adams v. State, 72 Ga. 85; Keaton v. State, 99 Ga. 197; Powell v. State, 101 Ga. 9. In the last, Mr. Justice Little so carefully and thoroughly discussed the whole subject that further comment is not now essential.

¶2In the present case, the statement of the accused, if true, brought his defense squarely under the provisions of sections 70 and 71 of the Penal Code; but the court nevertheless charged that he would not be justified unless at the time of the killing *742it was absolutely necessary that Teasley, in order to save his own life, must kill his adversary. This charge is assigned as erroneous ; and we think it was. Exception is.also taken to a charge which, though abstractly correct, is complained of because not warranted by the evidence. We have carefully read the evidence, and are of the opinion that this point is also well taken. In our opinion, therefore, the accused should have another trial. Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concurring.
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