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12 Ga. App. 536

Platt v. State

Court of Appeals of Georgia

Decided April 2, 1913

Court of Appeals of Georgia · decided 1913-04-02

Indictment for murder—conviction of voluntary manslaughter; from Thomas superior court—Judge Thomas. September 28, 1912. The .accused killed George Hurst, the husband of his sister. She was the only witness. She testified, that, while she was sitting on her husband’s lap, he became angry and said he was going to kill himself by cutting his head off. He was drunk ox had been drinking.

Relies on Gann v. State · McDuffie v. State · Caruthes v. State

Decided 1913-04-02

Russell, J.

¶1Neither under the evidence for the State nor in the prisoner’s statement was there any theory upon which a verdict of voluntary manslaughter could be sustained. Judgment reversed.

The defendant’s statement to the jury was as follows: “I was lying down on the bed and my sister screamed for me, and I got up and ran in there to her. I got in there and she had him (the deceased) by the left arm. He was saying he was going to kill her. I ran in and stabbed him. He swore he was going tp kill her, and as I stabbed him she jerked loose. I went out at one'door, he went out at the other. He ran in the house and shot me.”The court, in charging the jury, instructed them on the law relating to voluntary manslaughter; and in the motion for a new trial it is contended that this was error, because “if the evidence for the State be true, there could be no conviction except for murder; and if the statement of the defendant be true, the only possible verdict would be justifiable homicide.”W. H. Hammond, Boscoe Luke, Louis Moore, for plaintiff in error, cited Owens v. State, 120 Ga. 205.J. A. Wilkes, solicitor-general, contra, cited: Gann v. State, 30 Ga. 67; McDuffie v. State, 90 Ga. 787; Caruthes v. State, 95 Ga. 343.
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