Brant v. State
| Decision Date | 04 March 1932 |
| Docket Number | A-8269. |
| Parties | BRANT v. STATE. |
| Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma |
Rehearing Denied April 9, 1932.
Syllabus by the Court.
Where the sufficiency of the evidence to corroborate an accomplice is challenged, this court will take the strongest view of the corroborating testimony that such testimony will warrant and, if it can say that there is corroborating evidence tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense, it will uphold the verdict.
Appeal from District Court, Ellis County; T. P. Clay, Judge.
Roscoe Brant was convicted of grand larceny, and he appeals.
Affirmed.
C. B Leedy, of Arnett, for plaintiff in error.
J Berry King, Atty. Gen., and Smith C. Matson, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
Plaintiff in error, hereinafter called defendant, was convicted in the district court of Ellis county of the crime of grand larceny, and his punishment fixed by the jury at imprisonment in the reformatory at Granite, Okl., for five years.
Defendant contends, first, that the evidence of the state is insufficient to support the verdict of the jury, because the accomplice is not sufficiently corroborated.
Defendant was jointly charged with one John Fagala with the larceny of wheat belonging to one Gregory. Fagala, testifying for the state, said that he and defendant took Fagala's truck and went, late in the night, to Gregory's granary, and stole a load of wheat; that they took this wheat in a roundabout way through the town of Arnett to Fargo, a long distance from the place where the same was stolen. Defendant admits everything that Fagala testified to, except that, in explanation of his connection with the crime, he testified that he believed Fagala had bought this load of wheat from Gregory and had a right to take it and sell it, and that the defendant's connection with the transaction was entirely innocent.
The trial court instructed the jury that Fagala was an accomplice of defendant, and that a conviction could not be had upon his testimony alone; but that it was necessary for the state to establish the guilt of defendant, by other evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt.
Section 2701, C. O. S. 1921, while providing that a conviction cannot be had upon the testimony of an accomplice, unless such testimony is corroborated, only requires such corroboration as tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the crime. This corroboration need not be direct, but may be circumstantial only. It is not essential that the corroborating evidence shall cover every material point testified to by the accomplice, or be sufficient alone to warrant a verdict of guilty. When the accomplice is corroborated as to some material fact, or facts, by independent evidence of the crime, the jury could from that infer that he spoke the truth as to all. The corroborative testimony may not necessarily fall from the lips of other witnesses. The defendant may provide corroborative proof by his own conduct, such as by confessing the crime, by admissions on disputed points or by failure to produce available evidence.
According to defendant's own testimony, he went with Fagala, a boy only nineteen years of age, late at night, and helped him break into Gregory's granary and take wheat that Fagala claimed he had bought; helped him shovel the wheat on to the truck; bought gas for the trip made by the truck; got oil for the truck before they started on the trip; and did everything that Fagala did that would make him guilty of larceny; that defendant met Fagala at the town of Gage the next morning after the wheat was stolen; Fagala testifying he gave defendant $50 in currency at Gage, in bills of large denomination, received from the sale of the stolen wheat; that on the same morning defendant deposited $50 in cash in the bank at Shattuck. The banker at Shattuck testified that defendant deposited $50 in the bank, and that the currency was in bills of large denomination.
When arrested, defendant denied any knowledge of the larceny of the Gregory wheat, which was entirely inconsistent with the testimony given by him on the witness stand.
Fagala is not only corroborated by the admission of defendant that he went to Gage, that he talked to Fagala, but also by the fact that defendant deposited in the bank at Shattuck the same amount of money in currency that Fagala says he gave him in Gage on that day. Fagala is also corroborated by one Oakes, who was at the filling station and says he saw the defendant and Fagala engaged in close conversation on that morning.
The fact that defendant admits he went with Fagala, in the nighttime, and helped break into a granary and take wheat...
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