Conley v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 08 October 1929 |
| Citation | 230 Ky. 391 |
| Parties | Conley v. Commonwealth. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
1. Receiving Stolen Goods. — Under Ky. Stats., sec. 1199, Acts 1922, c. 113, making possession of stolen goods prima facie evidence of guilt, proof that stolen chickens were found in defendant's possession cast burden on him to show his lack of guilty knowledge.
2. Receiving Stolen Goods. — In prosecution for receiving and possessing stolen chickens, evidence as to identity and ownership of chickens held sufficient to present question for the jury to determine.
3. Criminal Law. — Search warrant under which evidence introduced was obtained must be produced at trial when demanded.
4. Criminal Law. — Where no action was taken on defendant's motion to require production of search warrant under which evidence introduced was obtained, and no objection was made to evidence obtained under such search warrant, defendant waived production of warrant, and any right he had to question admissibility of evidence procured under it.
Appeal from Estill Circuit Court.
E.B. ROSE and EZART ASHCRAFT for appellant.
J.W. CAMMACK, Attorney General, and SAMUEL B. KIRBY, JR., Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Affirming.
The appellant, Calvin Conley, has been found guilty of receiving and possessing stolen property, to wit, seven chickens, belonging to a neighbor, Mrs. J.E. Horton. The grounds upon which he hopes to secure a reversal of the judgment are that they were his own chickens; that there was no proof that he knowingly received stolen property, or that the chickens were actually stolen; and, further, that the evidence against him was obtained by an illegal search of his premises.
Section 1199 of the Statutes, as amended by Act March 24, 1922 (Acts 1922, c. 113), provides that "the possession of any stolen goods shall be prima facie evidence of the guilt, under this section, of any person or persons having such possession." When it was shown that these chickens had been stolen, and they were found in appellant's possession, the burden was cast upon him to show his lack of guilty knowledge. The owner of the chickens testified that she had missed several of her chickens from her flock about a week before the night of November 21, 1928. On that night she heard a chicken squawk, and the next morning found seven more of them had disappeared. It is clear from her evidence that the chickens were stolen.
There is some question raised about the identity of the chickens, appellant claiming that he had acquired them about nine months before from his mother-in-law, and that he had moved the chickens to his place about two weeks before the controversy over their possession. After missing her chickens, Mrs. Horton reported their loss to a police officer. He went through the alley between appellant's place and the home of Mrs. Horton, and from the alley saw in appellant's coop some chickens answering the description of those lost by Mrs. Horton. He reported this fact to her. It appears ...
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