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51 Ga. App. 225

Hammond v. State

Court of Appeals of Georgia

Decided May 3, 1935

Court of Appeals of Georgia · decided 1935-05-03

Relies on Berry v. State · Ivey v. State · Washington v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1935-05-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently February 1978

6 state decisions

2019351940195019601970decided

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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G-umKRY, J.

¶1The defendant was indicted for the possession of intoxicating liquor. The solicitor in liis argument to the jury said: “there was [is?] bootlegging all over the country and the defendant ought to be convicted.” The counsel for defendant thereupon moved the court for the grant of a mistrial for this prejudicial remark and the motion was overruled. The court did not rebuke counsel or tell the jury to disregard this statement. Held: While counsel may “under the fullest inspiration of excited genius give vent to their glowing conceptions, in thoughts that breathe and words that burn” (Berry v. State, 10 Ga. 511), yet it is important that the verdict of a jury should be based only on legal evidence properly submitted to them; and remarks of counsel, not in evidence nor drawn from evidence, irrelevant and immaterial-to the vital issue, and used ostensibly only for the purpose of prejudicing the minds of the jury against the defendant, where a motion for mistrial is made, and there is no rebuke of counsel by the court and no charge to the jury to disregard such statement, require the grant of a new trial. The fact that bootlegging was occurring all over the country, if such is a fact, could have no possible bearing upon the question of whether the defendant was in possession of intoxicating liquors. We therefore think a new trial should be granted. See Washington v. State, 87 Ga. 12 (13 S. E. 131); Fair v. State, 168 Ga. 409 (148 S. E. 144); Ivey v. State, 113 Ga. 1062 (39 S. E. 423, 54 L. R. A. 959); Hudson v. State, 101 Ga. 520 (28 S. E. 1010); Bryan v. State, 36 Ga. App. 656 (137 S. E. 797).

¶2Judgment reversed.

Broyles, O. J., and MacIntyre, J., concur.Price Edwards, for plaintiff in error.Hal C. Hutchens, solicitor-general, S. W. Ragsdale, contra.
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