State v. Hill

• Decision Date: 26 November 1888
• Citation: 10 S.W. 28,96 Mo. 357
• Parties: The State v. Hill, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

10 S.W. 28

96 Mo. 357

The State v. Hill, Appellant

Supreme Court of Missouri

November 26, 1888

Appeal from Saline Criminal Court. -- Hon. John E. Ryland, Judge.

Affirmed.

Boyd & Sebree for appellant.

The demurrer to the evidence should have been sustained. State v. Daubert, 42 Mo. 245.

B. G Boone, Attorney General, and A. F. Rector, Prosecuting Attorney, for the State.

Brace J. Ray, J., absent.

OPINION

Brace, J.

At the September term, 1887, of the criminal court of Saline county the defendant was convicted of grand larceny on an indictment charging him with having stolen a pair of black mare mules from one John J. Hardin in said county. An examination of the record discloses that the case was in its details well tried, and the only ground urged by counsel here for a reversal is, that the verdict is not supported by the evidence, and defendant's demurrer thereto, and his instruction to acquit should have been given.

I. The first defect pointed out is the alleged failure by the state to prove the venue as laid in Saline county. Hardin, the owner of the mules, testified that, at the time the mules were stolen, he was living in Saline county, Missouri, northwest of Slater; that the weather was fair, and that he had been ploughing with the mules; that they were taken right from the plow and put into the barn about sundown, and that between that time and eleven o'clock that night, they were stolen from the barn. From this evidence, the jury might reasonably infer that the barn was in Saline county. It is not necessary that the venue be proved by direct and positive evidence. It is sufficient if it can be reasonably inferred from the facts and circumstances proven. State v. Burns, 48 Mo. 438.

II. It was satisfactorily proved by the state that the mules were stolen on the night of the eighteenth of May, in Saline county; that they were the property of Hardin, as charged in the indictment; that on Sunday, the twenty-ninth of May, the defendant came to a wagon-yard on Twelfth and Olive streets in the city of St. Louis, in a buggy hitched to a span of black mare mules answering the description as to sex, age, size, form, color, and as to a mark on one and a brand on the other of the mules stolen; that he stayed there with the mules until the evening of the thirtieth, when he sold them to a man named Julian, who afterwards sold them to a man named Hill, who took them to St. Paul, after which no trace of the mules was found; that the defendant asked two hundred and thirty-five dollars, but took one hundred and seventy-five dollars for them; that upon the same day he sold the mules, he shipped the buggy and harness to Brownsville in Saline county, where they arrived on the first of June; that this was defendant's buggy and that on the third of June he came for it and took it away.

The defendant undertook to give no account of his possession of the mules he sold, saying to the sheriff who arrested him "I guess you must be mistaken in the man. I was at home at that time. I haven't been out of the county except on the first of June when I went to Sedalia," but his counsel say they were not sufficiently identified as the mules stolen. Two witnesses testified to the description of the mules stolen, Hardin the owner who raised one of them, and his near neighbor Smith from whom he bought the other. They agreed in their...