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69 Ga. App. 862

27 S.E.2d 101

Demonia v. State

Court of Appeals of Georgia

Decided September 15, 1943

Court of Appeals of Georgia · decided 1943-09-15

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“`One of the witnesses testified in this case to having worked at this still for this defendant, and that, under the law, constitutes what is known as an accomplice.'”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 82 Ga. App. 7 - Hamby v. State

Relies on Suddeth v. State · Davis v. State · Southern Express Co. v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1943-09-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently April 2025

11 state decisions

50194319501960197019801990200020102020decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

MacIntyre, J.

¶1 This is the third appearance of this case in this Court. See Demonia v. State, 66 Ga. App. 114 (17 S. E. 2d, 204); s. c. 68 Ga. App. 200 (22 S. E. 2d, 520). The defendant was charged with distilling or manufacturing and making alcoholic liquors, spirituous liquors, whisky and rum. The plea of not guilty filed by the defendant “is a contention on his part as to every material and essential fact necessary to establish his guilt and implies a denial of every such fact.” Southern Express Co. v. State, 1 Ga. App. 700 (5) (58 S. E. 67). His statement to the jury was in effect that he had inadvertently just come up to where the still was in operation when the officers appeared; that he knew nothing about it and had nothing to do with it. Thus an issue was made as to whether the witness, who was referred to in that portion of *863 the charge excepted to, was an accomplice. Section 81-1104 of the Code forbids a trial judge to “express or intimate his opinion as to what has or has not been proved,” and declares that should he violate this section, the reversal of the case is mandatory. The court charged the jury: “Gentlemen of the Jury, one of the witnesses testified in this case to having worked at this still for this defendant, and that, under the law, constitutes what is known as an accomplice.” This was an expression or intimation of an opinion not only that the witness was an accomplice but that he was an accomplice of the defendant. Following the ruling made in Davis v. State, 91 Ga. 167 (17 S. E. 292); Holtzendorff v. De Renne, 129 Ga. 226 (58 S. E. 710); Suddeth v. State, 112 Ga. 407, 409 (37 S. E. 747); and Cook v. State, 40 Ga. App. 125 (149 S. E. 79), the charge now under consideration was erroneous, and a new trial must be granted.

¶2 Judgment reversed.

Broyles, G. J., and Gardner, J., concur.
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