Hall v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 13 March 1884
• Citation: 78 Va. 678
• Parties: HALL v. THE COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

78 Va. 678

HALL v. THE COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

March 13, 1884

Absent, Lewis, P.

Error to judgment of corporation court of Danville, rendered October 13th, 1883, on an indictment against Robert Hall, for the larceny of a horse, and sentencing him to three years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. To this judgment Hall obtained a writ of error and supersedeas.

Opinion states the case.

T N. Page, for the prisoner.

Attorney-General F. S. Blair, for the Commonwealth.

OPINION

FAUNTLEROY J.

The prisoner, Robert Hall, was indicted, tried and convicted upon the charge of horse stealing.

The record shows the following certificate of facts proved upon the trial: On the 9th day of May, 1883, the horse of P. B Gravely, a well-known tobacconist, was tied in the open lot to the rear of the " Cabell Warehouse," Danville, Va. Robert Hall, the defendant, who was very much addicted to liquor, had driven the wagon of David Hardy to Danville, a distance of eighteen miles, with a load of tobacco, which had been sold on the said 9th of May, at the said Cabell Warehouse. About 1:30 o'clock P. M., on the said 9th of May, the defendant, Robert Hall, started to drive the wagon of the said Hardy back home, but was so much under the influence of liquor that he could not drive, and Mr. Hardy took the reins and drove the wagon home himself. Hall, the defendant, attempted to follow the wagon on foot, but after he had gone about three-quarters of a mile from the town of Danville, stopped under the shade of a tree. About sunset, before the employees, numbering about thirty, had left the warehouse, and a good number of factory hands were washing themselves at the trough in the said yard of the said warehouse, the defendant, Robert Hall, came in and told Willie Flippen that he was going home. He told the said Flippen that he had been on the grand jury for two weeks. There had been no grand jury in session at that time; and Flippen testified that he was drunk, from his talk and because he staggered. Hall is then seen on the horse of P. B. Gravely, which had been tied, as we have seen aforesaid, and rode towards the entrance in the rear of the lot. There were wagons coming in, and he did not go out, but turned round and started to ride through the warehouse along the whole length of the wagon way. All of this was seen by Gravely, the owner of the horse, and E. F. Acree, one of the proprietors of the said warehouse, who were talking together at the rear entrance of the same. There were about thirty employees in the house at this time. The defendant, Hall, was stopped near the entrance by P. B. Gravely, who asked him what he was going to do with that horse. Hall said he was going to ride him home. Gravely then asked if he knew whose horse it was. He said that it was his horse, and he would be damned if he got down. Gravely threatened to knock him off if he did not get down. Hall then got down and started...