Hatcher v. State

• Decision Date: 19 October 1917
• Citation: 74 Fla. 112,76 So. 694
• Parties: HATCHER v. STATE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

76 So. 694

74 Fla. 112

HATCHER v. STATE.

Florida Supreme Court

October 19, 1917

Error to Criminal Court of Record, Orange County; T. Picton Warlow Judge.

N. P Hatcher was convicted of receiving stolen goods and he brings error. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

In a prosecution for receiving stolen goods knowing them to have been stolen, where the legal effect of the evidence is to show that the goods received by the defendant were stolen and not embezzled, a contention that the defendant is illegally convicted because the evidence shows embezzlement is unavailing.

Where a servant is sent with a wagon to get sacks of grain purchased by his employer and to transport them to the barn of the employer, the grain is in the legal and constructive possession of the employer when the wagon with the grain arrives at the employer's barn; and if the servant unloads the grain, except two of the sacks, which two sacks he leaves in the wagon, and takes away with a felonious intent to deprive the owner of them, the servant commits a trespass and the crime of larceny of the two sacks; and a person who receives the two sacks knowing them to have been stolen may be convicted of the statutory crime of receiving stolen goods knowing them to have been stolen.

Where charges on the subject of reasonable doubt are sufficiently accurate, entirely fair, and could not reasonably have misled the jury to the defendant's prejudice, technical objections to the charges will not avail.

A charge that the jury should not convict upon the testimony of an accomplice alone unless they are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of its truth, 'and that they can safely rely upon it,' is not harmful.

A requested charge on the effect of the testimony of an accomplice is properly refused, when it contains a statement that 'it ought to be corroborated in material facts.'

COUNSEL Dickinson & Dickinson, of Sanford, for plaintiff in error.

T. F West, Atty. Gen., and C. O. Andrews, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

OPINION

WHITFIELD J.

Hatcher was convicted of the crime of receiving stolen goods knowing them to have been stolen as defined in section 3304, General Statutes of 1906, Compiled Laws 1914, and took writ of error.

It is in effect contended here that the evidence shows an embezziement by the servant of the owner from whom the goods were received, and not larceny of the goods by him; and that, though our statute makes embezzlement by a servant punishable as larceny, the statutes defining the crime of receiving stolen goods knowing them to have been stolen and the crime of receiving embezzled property knowing it to have been embezzled are distinct, therefore the conviction cannot stand, the statute not making embezzlement larceny, but merely punishable as larceny.

The contention does not avail, since the legal effect of the evidence is to show larceny and not embezzlement by the servant of the owner from whom the defendant received the goods.

In substance the testimony is that the servant was sent with a wagon to get sacks of grain purchased by his employer and transport them to the barn of the employer. On arriving at the barn the servant unloaded all except two sacks of the grain which he left in the wagon, and then, driving to the defendant's place of...