Durham v. State

Decided January 15, 1872

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1872-01-15

<p>In a murder trial, if the State prove by cross-examination of a witness for the defense, that “not a negro in the neighborhood was friendly to prisoner(who was himself a negro) and the evidence of guilt rests solely on the testimony of one witness, who was also unfriendly to prisoner, and the prisoner offer to prove the cause of his unpopularity with his own race, he should be permitted to do so.</p>

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently November 1905

1 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1872-01-15

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Montgomery, Judge.

¶1The only assignment of error we deem it necessary to notice in this case is the refusal of the Court to permit the prisoner, after the State had shown his unpopularity with his own race in the neighborhood, to prove the cause of the ill-feeling towards him. In this we think the Court erred, the more especially as the only witness who testified to the prisoner’s guilt was himself proven to be unfriendly to him. Had the jury known the cause of this unfriendly feeling, they would have been better able to estimate the weight of the testimony against the prisoner.

¶2Let the judgment be reversed.