Crowell v. State

• Decision Date: 08 November 1943
• Docket Number: 35322.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: CROWELL v. STATE.

15 So.2d 508

195 Miss. 427

CROWELL v. STATE.

No. 35322.

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 8, 1943

Appeal from Jones County Court; Roy P. Noble, Judge.

G W. Hosey, of Laurel, for appellant.

Greek L. Rice, Atty. Gen., by R. O. Arrington, Asst. Atty. Gen for appellee.

McGEHEE Justice.

Under an indictment charging him with the crime of receiving stolen goods knowing the same to have been stolen, the appellant was tried and convicted of such offense, and was thereupon sentenced to serve a term in the state penitentiary.

On this appeal, he seeks a reversal of the case chiefly on the following grounds: (1) The refusal of the trial court to grant a peremptory instruction in his favor; (2) the granting of an instruction in favor of the State in form and substance as hereinafter set forth; (3) the action of the trial court in sentencing the accused to serve a term in the state penitentiary, where it was shown that the property involved was of less than $25 in value.

The proof on behalf of the State disclosed that the appellant Crowell, purchased an automobile tire in the City of Laurel from one Will Evans, who admittedly had stolen it, and that Crowell, when questioned by an officer as to how he came into possession of the said recently stolen property, at first claimed to have purchased from a man in Hattiesburg, whose name he did not know, whereas, he later admitted having purchased it from the said Will Evans, with whom he was shown to have been personally acquainted, the said Evans having brought the tire to the home of the accused in Laurel, where the latter acquired possession thereof upon the payment of the sum of $8 as the purchase price therefor. On behalf of the defendant, Crowell, it was shown that the tire in question was brought to his home by the said Will Evans in a taxicab in the daytime, where it was delivered in the presence of other persons, and that the said Evans claimed that he was selling secondhand tires for a man in New Orleans. It was not shown that at the time the defendant purchased the tire from Evans and received the same into his possession he had any knowledge of the fact that it had been stolen, unless such knowledge may be inferred from his possession of the recently stolen property, coupled with the further circumstances that he is said to have made misrepresentations to the officer as to where he purchased the tire and as to whether he knew the person from whom he received it. Under all the facts and circumstances, we are unable to say that the evidence was insufficient to warrant the submission of the case to the jury as to whether the misrepresentations showed guilty knowledge on the part of the accused or merely evidenced his desire not to give up the property and lose the purchase price paid therefor.

The second ground assigned for error is the granting of the following instruction: "The court instructs the jury for the State that possession of recently stolen property by a defendant is a circumstance strongly indicative of guilt and that it will justify, support or warrant a verdict for the state and if you believe from the evidence in this case beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, B. C. Crowell, had in his possession the property set out in the indictment and that said property had been lately before feloniously taken and carried away and he has not satisfactorily explained his possession of said property then you may infer his guilt from lack of a satisfactory explanation as to his possession of said property."

The foregoing instruction is subject to more than one objection, but we shall first consider that portion thereof which states that "possession of recently stolen property by a defendant is a circumstance strongly indicative of guilt and that it will justify, support, or warrant a verdict for the state." In the case of Stokes v. State, 58 Miss. 677, where the defendant was convicted of the actual theft of the property involved, the trial court had given an instruction in regard to the defendant's possession of recently stolen property to the effect that "the law presumed the defendant to have stolen it, and the jury should convict him upon this evidence alone, without any corroboration, unless he, by proof, overcome the legal presumption of guilt; * * *", provided he had failed to give a reasonable account of his possession. The instruction was held to be fatally erroneous in assuming, as a matter of law, that possession of recently stolen property is a circumstance from which guilt may be inferred. The Court stated in its opinion, however, that the jury "may be told that it is a circumstance strongly indicative of guilt, and that it will justify, support, or warrant a verdict for the State; but they must still be left to decide whether, in fact, it does satisfy them of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." The Court then further stated that "this is a deduction which must be made by the jury, or not, as it satisfies their consciences; and however strongly the one fact may seem to follow from the other, they cannot be told that they must infer it, or that the law infers it for them." Since the decision in the Stokes case, supra, the Court seems not to have been called upon either to approve or condemn an instruction so strongly commenting upon the weight of the evidence, even where the accused was being tried for the actual commission of the crime of burglary or larceny where the possession by the accused of recently stolen property was involved. The instructions which have been subsequently called into review, where the principle sought to be announced in the instruction herein complained of was involved, have read, in substance, as follows: "The court instructs the jury that the possession of property recently stolen is a circumstance which may be considered by the jury and from which, in the absence of a reasonable explanation, the jury may infer guilt of larceny" or burglary, as the case may be.

As to whether an instruction of like import should be given in a case where the accused is being tried for receiving stolen goods knowing them to have been stolen, the decisions are somewhat in a state of confusion. For instance, it was held long prior to the decision of the Stokes case, supra, that: "Generally, the fact that a party is found in the possession of stolen property recently after the commission of larceny, is not a circumstance from which it can be legally inferred, that the party found in possession received the property with a knowledge that it had been stolen. On the contrary, proof of such fact, connected with other circumstances, would be presumptive evidence that the party himself had committed the larceny. * * *; but it is conceded, that there might be a case where recent possession of stolen goods, united with other circumstances, would warrant the presumption of a felonious reception, and not of a larceny of the goods." Sartorious v. State, 24 Miss. 602.

In the case of Autman v. State, 126 Miss. 629, 89 So. 265 it was held, on the trial of a defendant charged with receiving recently stolen goods, that the possession thereof by the accused gives rise to a presumption or inference of fact (not of law) that the defendant is guilty. But the principle was later announced in the case of Sanford v. State, 155 Miss. 295, 124 So. 353, that "the unexplained possession of stolen property shortly after the commission of a larceny is a circumstance from which guilt of the larceny may be inferred, but no inference can be drawn therefrom alone that the one in possession of the property received it from another knowing that it had been stolen",...