Opinion
35172.
DECIDED MAY 25, 1954.
Violating liquor law. Before Judge Craigmiles. Thomasville City Court. March 8, 1954.
A. J. Whitehurst, for plaintiff in error.
Marcus B. Calhoun, Solicitor, contra.
1. "On a prosecution for a particular crime, evidence which in any manner shows or tends to show that the accused has committed another crime wholly distinct, independent, and separate from that for which he is on trial, even though it be a crime of the same sort, is irrelevant and inadmissible, unless there be shown some logical connection between the two from which it can be said that proof of the one tends to establish the other." Bacon v. State, 209 Ga. 261 ( 71 S.E.2d 615), and citations. Under that rule, it was error requiring the grant of a new trial for the trial court on September 21, 1953, on the trial of the defendant for the possession of non-tax-paid whisky in Thomas County on May 22, 1953, to permit the introduction in evidence by the State of the defendant's plea of guilty to an accusation charging him with the possession of non-tax-paid whisky on August 1, 1953, without showing some logical connection between the two offenses such that the proof of the offense committed on August 1 tended to establish the offense alleged to have been committed on May 22. The introduction of the defendant's plea of guilty to the accusation in August did not illustrate any plan, scheme, or system which tended to establish the defendant's guilt of the offense in May.
2. Since the case must be remanded for a new trial, the other assignments of error are not considered.
Judgment reversed. Gardner, P. J., and Townsend, J., concur.
DECIDED MAY 25, 1954.
Under a special accusation in two counts, the defendant was charged in count 1 with possessing whisky, the containers of which did not bear the tax stamps prescribed by the State Revenue Commission; and this offense is alleged to have been committed in Thomas County, Georgia, on May 22, 1953, and on no other date. In count 2, he is charged with possessing whisky on May 22, 1953, and on no other date, in Thomas County, Georgia, which is a county in which the terms of the revenue act to legalize and control alcoholic beverages and liquors do not apply, and is a county wherein the alcoholic beverages and liquors have not been legalized under the terms of the act.
The jury returned a general verdict finding the defendant guilty as charged. The defendant's motion for new trial, based on the usual general grounds and two special grounds, was denied, and he has brought the present writ of error to have that judgment reviewed.