Jones v. State, 7 Div. 229
| Decision Date | 02 January 1974 |
| Docket Number | 7 Div. 229 |
| Citation | 51 Ala.App. 570,287 So.2d 886 |
| Parties | Earnest JONES et al. v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
Anthony M. Falletta, Birmingham, for appellants Jackson and howard.
No brief for Jones.
William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen., Montgomery, and Samuel L. Adams, Dothan, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Appellants were each indicted for grand larceny and on arraignment, plead not guilty and motion was made by each for consolidation of the cases for trial. The motion was granted by the court. The trial resulted in the conviction of each as charged. Punishment was fixed by the court at six years imprisonment in the penitentiary for each. The three appellants have perfected this appeal.
Each appellant moved that the evidence offered by the State be excluded because it failed to establish the corpus delicti and each motion was overruled by the court.
The appellants did not testify nor offer any witnesses in their behalf.
On the night of July 21, 1972, J. B. Price and his wife were operating a service station, owned jointly by them in Talladega. At about 8 o'clock a gray Oldsmobile occupied by three people was driven into the station and the driver, appellant Wilbert Jackson, got out of the car and asked Mrs. Price that the oil be checked, the other two passengers remaining in the car. She told him her husband, who at the time was busy with another customer, would wait on him shortly. She did not notice or pay attention to the other two, but later identified Jackson as the driver. She and her husband continued with their service to customers for some five or more minutes when J. B. Price looked up from the car he was servicing and noticed two men coming out a building where beer and groceries were sold in connection with the business. He later identified the two as the appellants, Jones and Howard. They got back in the car which was immediately driven out of the station, scrubbing against the concrete pump island and an oil rack as it left, and headed north toward Lincoln. An immediate check of the inside of the store building revealed an open cash register with all of the paper money missing and nineteen silver Eisenhower dollars missing from a purse kept by Mrs. Price under the cash register.
The Talladega police were notified and a description of the car and passengers broadcast to law enforcement agencies. State trooper sergeant Dave H. Dothard heard the broadcast and shortly thereafter saw, chased, and stopped a car with three passengers fitting the description. Just before the car stopped he observed a paper sack come from the right side of the car, which he retrieved and found nineteen silver Eisenhower dollars in it. Two other troopers, answering his call for assistance, soon appeared and all three passengers were searched and taken back to Talladega to police headquarters. One hundred and seventeen dollars in greenbacks were found in the pockets of appellant Jones and twenty-seven dollars in the pockets of Howard, but only small change on appellant Jackson. The three were arrested and charged with grand larceny. Captain William J. May of the Talladega police force first investigated the report of the larceny at the service station and substantiated the testimony of the owners as to the empty cash register (except as to some silver coins) and found scuffed places on the corner of the concrete pump island and scratched paint on the oil rack. He also took photographs of the...
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...of the evidence tending to support that inference to the jury. . . ." (Citations omitted.) See also: Cumbo, supra; Jones v. State, 51 Ala.App. 570, 287 So.2d 886 (1974) and cases cited To constitute larceny, there must be a severance of the possession of the owner and an actual possession b......
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