Opinion
34124.
DECIDED JULY 14, 1952.
Arson; from Screven Superior Court — Judge Renfroe. March 31, 1952.
W. C. Hawkins, for plaintiff in error.
Walton Usher, Solicitor-General, contra.
The testimony of the accomplice here was sufficiently corroborated. The evidence supported the verdict of guilty, which, having the approval of the trial court, will not be disturbed by this court.
DECIDED JULY 14, 1952.
Retha Mae Parker was indicted with Sampson and Sallie Parker and separately tried and convicted of the offense of arson in the Superior Court of Screven County. The State proved the burning of certain buildings belonging to a private individual and used as a Negro church and school. Sampson Parker, an adopted son of Sallie and a foster brother of Retha Mae, confessed to the crime and testified in accordance with the confession in substance that Retha Mae had told him their mother wanted them to burn the church; that they had gone to the building with a can of kerosene; that he had poured the kerosene and the defendant had struck the fire; that they then returned home through the fields and the defendant tore her dress while crossing a fence. Tracks of two people were found in the vicinity of the fire, and at the fence. A piece of torn printed cotton cloth was found on the fence. Officers went to the defendant's home and found a skirt, which was damp, belonging to the defendant and which contained a tear matching that of the piece of cloth.
The defendant contended that she knew nothing about the crime but had torn her skirt on the fence during the afternoon when she and another witness were picking cherries and huckleberries; that they went by a spring and then crossed the fence on their way home. In rebuttal the State produced evidence that cherries and huckleberries were not ripe at that time in that vicinity; that the spring was also dry at that time, and that it had rained on the night in question sufficiently to wipe out the footprints by the fence if they had been made there during the afternoon, as contended by the defendant and her witness.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty. A motion for a new trial on the general grounds only was overruled, and the exception is to this judgment.
There can be no conviction of felony on testimony of an accomplice, unless the accomplice's testimony is corroborated by other evidence connecting the defendant with the crime and tending to show his participation therein which would lead to an inference of the guilt of the accused independently of the accomplice's testimony. Welborn v. State, 25 Ga. App. 327 ( 103 S.E. 193); Stephens v. State, 56 Ga. App. 9 ( 192 S.E. 78). The corroboration may be by circumstantial evidence, and it need not conclusively raise an inference of the guilt of the accused if it is of such weight that, when considered with the testimony of the accomplice, it shows guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Milner v. State, 7 Ga. App. 82 ( 66 S.E. 280); Whaley v. State, 177 Ga. 757 ( 171 S.E. 290); Jackson v. State, 64 Ga. 344. Slight circumstances may amount to sufficient corroboration, the weight thereof being exclusively for the jury. Anglin v. State, 14 Ga. App. 566 ( 81 S.E. 804); New v. State, 26 Ga. App. 5 ( 105 S.E. 50); Walter v. State, 41 Ga. App. 570 (2) ( 153 S.E. 925); Brown v. State, 18 Ga. App. 288 (1) ( 89 S.E. 342). The jury, in seeking to evaluate the corroborative circumstances, may consider their probability and whether the explanation offered by the defendant is disproved, as in Harrell v. State, 121 Ga. 607 (4) ( 49 S.E. 703), an arson case, where the improbability of the defendant's story was considered, with other circumstances as matter of corroboration. The State's evidence here, independent of the testimony of the accomplice, tended to show that she was at or near the scene of the crime on the night in question by showing that a piece of her skirt was found on a fence near the building, together with two sets of footprints, and her explanation as to the time when she was in that vicinity was rebutted by evidence that, had the skirt been torn in the afternoon, the footprints would have been washed out by the rain; that her skirt was wet; that the spring she claimed to have visited was dry at the time and the cherries she claimed to have been picking were not ripe. This constituted sufficient corroboration to authorize the jury, considering it in connection with the testimony of the accomplice, to return a verdict of guilty.
The trial court did not err in overruling the motion for a new trial.
Judgment affirmed. Gardner, P. J., and Carlisle, J., concur.