Logan v. State
| Decision Date | 05 May 1923 |
| Docket Number | A-3817. |
| Citation | 214 P. 944,23 Okla.Crim. 316 |
| Parties | LOGAN v. STATE. |
| Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma |
Syllabus by the Court.
One charged with the receiving of stolen property may or may not be an accomplice of the thief who stole it. Held in this case, if the testimony of the person who committed the larceny is true, he was an accomplice of the person who received the stolen property, and should be corroborated by other testimony.
Where a conviction rests largely upon the testimony of an accomplice it is error for the court to refuse to define the term "accomplice," and error to refuse to instruct the jury that such a witness must be corroborated by other evidence.
Appeal from District Court, Kay County; J. W. Bird, Judge.
Ed Logan was convicted of receiving stolen property, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions.
Wm. S Cline and Wm. H. Cline, both of Newkirk, for plaintiff in error.
The Attorney General and E. L. Fulton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Ed Logan, plaintiff in error, here referred to as the defendant was on January 19, 1920, by a verdict of a jury found guilty of the crime of receiving stolen property. Judgment was pronounced by the court on January 28th, assessing his punishment at confinement in the state penitentiary for a term of two years. From this judgment defendant appeals.
The defendant for many years had been a farmer in Kay county, but had recently moved to Newkirk, where he was engaged in the automobile livery business. A part of this business, as conducted by him, consisted in carrying men who handled oil well rigs or derricks. He was in the habit of taking a load of men at midnight to the oil fields and returning with another load whose shift ended at midnight. These men worked more or less intermittently, and when they were not at work in the oil fields defendant sometimes employed some of them to drive one or more of his taxies, among whom was Frank Warriner, one of the witnesses for the state in this case.
According to the defendant's testimony, Warriner returned from Arkansas City at about 10 o'clock one morning and reported that he had taken some passengers to Arkansas City and had had a blow-out, and that he bought a tire in Arkansas City, at the Cribbs garage, to replace the ruined tire paying therefor the sum of $17.50. The defendant asked Warriner how much he had received as passenger hire, and Warriner told him $5.00. The defendant then went into the Newport Café, which was also his taxi headquarters, and paid Warriner $12.50, the difference between the fares received and the cost of the tire. A few days later, while the automobile on which this tire had been placed was standing in front of the Newport Café, a deputy sheriff said to the defendant that he believed that defendant had a stolen tire on his car. After some conversation the defendant offered to show by Warriner how he had acquired the tire.
It was the theory of the state, and there was some evidence to support it, that the defendant, Warriner, and a man by the name of Elroy had agreed among themselves that, if Elroy and Warriner would steal automobile tires, the defendant would find a place for the sale and disposal thereof, and that they would all share in the proceeds; that, pursuant to this arrangement, Warriner and Elroy stole eight tires from C. A. Howland, out of his garage at Newkirk, and that the defendant found sale for these tires at the Cribbs garage in Arkansas City, where they were delivered by Warriner according to an agreement with defendant; that defendant was guilty of receiving the particular tire found on his automobile from Warriner, who had obtained it from the Cribbs garage.
But three witnesses testified for the state. C. A. Howland, the owner of the particular tire here in issue, identified the tire as belonging to him and said that it had been stolen some time prior to its discovery, by persons unknown to him. Warriner had been arrested for the...
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