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25 Ga. 474

Stringfield v. State

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided June 15, 1858

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1858-06-15

Misdemeanor, from Richmond county. Decided by Judge Holt, at October Term, 1858.

Relies on Ricks v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1858-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently February 1951

5 state decisions

2018581860187018801890190019101920193019401950decided

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.

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¶1By the Court.

McDonald, J.

¶2delivering the opinion.

¶3Every ground in the motion in arrest of judgment on which error is assigned, has been decided by this Court. In the case of Ricks vs. the State, the plaintiff in error, was indicted for buying cotton from a slave without permission; the Judge of the circuit Court charged the jury that it was not necessary to allege or prove the ownership of the cotton in any person, and this Court sustained the charge. 16 Ga. 600, 603.

¶4Fardy Sweeney was indicted in the Superior Court of Bibb county, for selling and furnishing a slave with spirituous liquors, for the slave’s own use, he the said Sweeney not being the owner, overseer or employer of said slave, and not then and *476there having the said slave under his custody or care. The jury found him guilty. It was objected to the indictment on a motion in arrest of the judgment, that it did not aver the name of the negro or contain any other allegation by which his identity might be sustained or proved. In delivering the judgment, the Court remarked that itwas insisted that unless the indictment had stated the name of the negro and the name of his owner, the judgment would not serve as a bar to another indictment for the same offence. This Court held otherwise. 16 Ga. R. 467. These cases settle the points made in this case. It is true that in the case of Sweeney vs. State, the indictment charged that the name and owner of the slave were unknown. But the Court decided the case without reference to that allegation. Indictments for larceny must charge the ownership of the property alleged to have been stolen to be in some person, and if the owner be unknown that must be alleged. But that is a rule not without a reason, for the jury on conviction of the accused find all the facts charged and among them the ownership if the property alleged to have been stolen. On conviction of the defendant, the owner, if known, is entitled to have the property restored to him and if he be not known, it goes, in England, to the crown. 2 East’s. Cr. Law, 651. Larceny and Robbery, Sec. 88.

¶5In this State every negro is presumed to be a slave and to have an owner, and proof of his color is sufficient prima facie evidence of his being a slave and supports that allegation.

¶6Judgment affirmed.

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