Burch v. State, 35374

• Decision Date: 22 October 1954
• Docket Number: No. 35374,No. 2,35374,2
• Citation: 84 S.E.2d 717,90 Ga.App. 876
• Parties: Emma BURCH v. The STATE
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 717

84 S.E.2d 717

90 Ga.App. 876

Emma BURCH v. The STATE.

No. 35374.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Oct. 22, 1954.

J. T. Sisk, Elberton, for plaintiff in error.

Carey Skelton, Sol. Gen., Hartwell, for defendant in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court

CARLISLE, Judge.

The defendant was tried and convicted of the larceny of $2,887 from the house of Charlie Burch. Her motion for a new trial, based on the usual general grounds, and one special ground, which is but an amplification of the general grounds, was denied and she has brought the present writ of error to have that judgment reviewed.

1. 'Evidence, while wholly circumstantial may be sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis save that of the defendant's guilt and authorize his conviction.' Bone v. State, 89 Ga.App. 477, 79 S.E.2d 584, and citations.

2. From the evidence adduced on the trial, the jury was authorized to find that the defendant came to Charlie Burch's house some time in June, 1952, with his son, whom he had not seen for some three years; that they represented to him that the defendant, who was a grown woman, was his niece whom he had not seen since she was four years of age; that the defendant agreed to stay and look after him as he was an aged Negro sharecropper in poor health, and his son depated and had not been seen since; that he, Charlie Burch, had more than $2,800 in cash, which he kept locked up in a wardrobe in his house; that he kept the wardrobe and house locked at all times and the keys on his person, except on one occasion he had given the defendant the key to the wardrobe to get money to pay a physician who was making a professional call on him, and on other occasions he had left the defendant in the house with instructions to lock the house if she left it, but that she had never had the key to the wardrobe except on the one occasion mentioned; that the defendant was the only person whom he had told of the presence of the money in his house, and was the only person who had seen where he kept his money except the physician on the occasion mentioned; that, although the defendant had informed others, prior to the date of the alleged larceny of the money, of the presence of the money in the house, no one had been in the house between the time he last checked the presence of the money and the date the money was discovered missing except him and the defendant; that on the day on which the money was discovered to be missing he had observed...