Nixon v. State

• Decision Date: 24 April 1911
• Docket Number: 16,890
• Citation: Nixon v. State, 89 Neb. 109, 130 N.W. 1049 (Neb. 1911)
• Parties: GEORGE NIXON v. STATE OF NEBRASKA
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

130 N.W. 1049

89 Neb. 109

GEORGE NIXON v. STATE OF NEBRASKA

No. 16,890

Supreme Court of Nebraska

April 24, 1911

ERROR to the district court for Nemaha county: LEANDER M PEMBERTON, JUDGE. Affirmed. Sentence reduced.

AFFIRMED.

E. B Quackenbush and F. G. Hawxby, for plaintiff in error.

Grant G. Martin, Attorney General, and Frank E. Edgerton, contra.

OPINION

REESE C. J.

Plaintiff in error was charged in the district court with the crime of burglary and larceny by breaking into a store and stealing goods therefrom. He was tried for both offenses, and was found not guilty of burglary, but guilty of larceny; the value of the property found to have been stolen being fixed at $ 50. He was sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of three years. From that judgment he prosecutes error to this court.

It is contended by plaintiff in error that the verdict of the jury is not supported by sufficient evidence: First, that there is no competent evidence that any property was stolen; second, that even if such were the case, it was not shown that plaintiff in error committed the theft; third, that the goods alleged to be stolen, and claimed to have been found in the possession of plaintiff in error, were not of sufficient value to constitute grand larceny; fourth, that there was no proof that the goods were taken without the consent of the owner.

Referring to the first, second and third of these contentions, the evidence shows that the store and the goods therein were owned by a firm under the firm name of Young & Klinger situated in the village of Julian, in Nemaha county; that they employed three clerks; that on the 1st day of January, 1910, they were called to their telephone by the sheriff of Otoe county, and inquired of if they had lost any goods out of their store; that they and their clerks immediately commenced an investigation, and discovered, as they thought, that quite a quantity of their goods had been stolen. It is not necessary that we set out here a list of the goods that were discovered to have been abstracted, as quite a quantity of the contents of the store, consisting of clothing, jewelry, shoes, and groceries, were thought to have been taken. One of the members of the firm went to Nebraska City, where the sheriff of Otoe county held plaintiff in error and another in custody, when it was discovered that they had in their possession a number of articles corresponding in quality,...