142 Ga. App. 247 - Brown v. State

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently December 2003

12 state decisions

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.

Bell, Chief Judge.

¶1 Defendant was tried for murder but was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced. Held:

¶2 1. Charging the jury on the contentions of the *248 defendant is not a burden shifting charge under our decision in Moran v. State, 139 Ga. App. 274 (228 SE2d 216). The holdings on this issue found in Henderson v. State, 134 Ga. App. 898, 900 (216 SE2d 696) and Graham v. State, 135 Ga. App. 825 (219 SE2d 477), relied on by defendant, were specifically overruled by Moran v. State, supra.

Submitted April 5, 1977 Decided May 9, 1977. Fuller & Schiller, Kenneth C. Fuller, for appellant. F. Larry Salmon, District Attorney, Robert D. Englehart, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.

¶3 2. The court concluded its charge with a recharge on the law as to voluntary manslaughter and justifiable homicide. A mere repetition of a principle of law, while unnecessary, will not work a reversal unless it appears from the charge as a whole that there was such undue emphasis as to result in an unfair statement of the law in relation to the defendant’s rights. Baker v. State, 88 Ga. App. 894, 895 (78 SE2d 357). In the instant case, the reiteration was as to the lesser included offense of the crime charged in the indictment and as to the defendant’s sole defense — both favorable to the defendant. When the charge is read as a whole, we cannot say that it confused or misled the jury or in any manner resulted in an unfair statement of the law as it relates to defendant.

¶4 Judgment affirmed.

McMurray and Smith, JJ., concur.