Bridges v. State

• Decision Date: 24 September 1928
• Docket Number: (No. 141.)
• Citation: 9 S.W.2d 240
• Parties: BRIDGES v. STATE.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

9 S.W.2d 240

BRIDGES v. STATE.

(No. 141.)

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

September 24, 1928.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Sebastian County; J. Sam Wood, Judge.

J. M. Bridges was convicted of receiving stolen property, and he appeals. Affirmed.

John B. Hiner, of Ft. Smith, for appellant.

H. W. Applegate, Atty. Gen., and Effie Combs, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

McHANEY, J,

Appellant was indicted in count 1 of the indictment with the larceny of certain personal property of the Cox Stores Company, and in the second count, with receiving the same property described in the first count, unlawfully and feloniously, knowing the same to have been stolen. He was acquitted on count 1, and convicted on count 2, and sentenced to one year in the penitentiary. Three assignments of error are made for a reversal of this case: First, that the court should have required the state to elect on which count of the indictment it would go to trial; second, that instruction No. 9 was error; and, third, the insufficiency of the evidence to justify a conviction.

1. There was no error in the refusal of the court to require the state to elect upon which count it would put appellant to trial. Section 3016 C. & M. Digest, first subdivision, is authority for joining the two offenses in one indictment, just as another subdivision of the same section authorized the joining in one indictment of the charge of larceny and that of embezzlement, and they may therefore be tried together without requiring the state to elect, where the charges are closely related or of a kindred nature.

As said by this court in Hall v. State, 161 Ark. 453, 257 S. W. 61, where the charge was larceny and embezzlement included in the same indictment:

"Where the statute authorizes two offenses of a kindred nature to be joined in one indictment, and they would be proved by substantially the same evidence, or evidence connected with a single line of conduct, it necessarily follows that the defendant's rights are not jeopardized by a single trial."

2. Instruction No. 9 is as follows:

"You are instructed that the possession of property recently stolen, without reasonable explanation of that possession, is evidence which goes to you for your consideration under all the circumstances in the case, to be weighed as tending to show the guilt of the one in whose hands such property is found, but such evidence alone does not imperatively impose upon you the duty of convicting even though it be not rebutted."

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