Peterson v. State
| Decision Date | 31 July 1909 |
| Docket Number | 1,479. |
| Citation | 65 S.E. 311,6 Ga.App. 491 |
| Parties | PETERSON v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
The evidence, though weak, is sufficient to authorize the verdict of guilty.
(a) In prosecutions for larceny, it is essential that the article stolen be proved to be of some value; but proof of the price at which an article was purchased is a circumstance from which value may be inferred.
(b) In a trial for burglary, the venue of the offense is satisfactorily proved, and the jurisdiction of the court is shown if the evidence establishes that the house burglarized is within the jurisdiction of the court. The evidentiary value of testimony showing the defendant to have been in recent possession of goods stolen at the time of the burglary is not affected by the fact that such recent possession appears to have been at a place beyond the jurisdiction of the court, for the venue of the crime itself is not determined by the locality where the guilty possession is shown.
(c) Proof of the possession of goods by one whose right of possession is unquestioned will suffice to support an allegation of ownership laid in such person.
It is within the discretion of the trial judge to permit leading questions to be propounded to a witness on the direct examination, or he may sustain objections thereto, as the ends of justice and the ascertainment of the truth seem to require; and this discretion will not be controlled, unless it be made to appear that injury resulted to the party complaining.
The errors assigned are insufficient to authorize the grant of a new trial, though the language employed in the charge of which complaint is made is not approved as a full and satisfactory statement upon the subject of which the instruction proposes to treat. The idea intended to be conveyed by the court must have been perfectly plain to a jury of ordinary intelligence, and therefore the error of omission is harmless.
To instruct the jury, after defining the offense of burglary (and without more): "If there has been such force and such an entrance in this case, you would be authorized to convict the defendant; if not, you ought to acquit him"--is an error so calculated to mislead the jury as to require the grant of a new trial; and even though the court later instructed the jury that "the recent possession of stolen goods, not satisfactorily accounted for may be a circumstance from which it might be inferred that the party in possession was the party who committed the burglary," this instruction, in my opinion, rather tended to aggravate the error, because, unless the defendant broke and entered the house, such an instruction would only be applicable to a charge for receiving stolen goods.
Error from Superior Court, Floyd County; Moses Wright, Judge.
George Peterson was convicted of burglary, and he brings error. Affirmed.
Henry Walker, for plaintiff in error.
W. H Ennis, Sol. Gen., for the State.
Upon his conviction of the offense of burglary the plaintiff in error moved for a new trial, and the writ of error complains of the judgment overruling that motion. In addition to the grounds that the verdict was contrary to law and contrary to evidence, error is assigned upon the fact that the court permitted the counsel for the state to ask, and a witness for the state to answer, a leading question. Exception is also taken to the following instruction in the charge of the court:
1. The evidence shows that the house of one Bradley was broken into while he and his family were at church. That a window was prized open, and the house entered, and the gun in question carried away, was not disputed. The defendant insists that the case, on the part of the state, failed because he was not identified as the burglar, and for the further reason that the value of the gun was not proved. An inspection of the brief of the evidence does not sustain these contentions. The prosecutor testified that he paid $12.50 for the gun. It is true that this may or may not be evidence of its correct value; but, as we held in Atlantic Coast Line v. Harris 1 Ga.App. 667, 57 S.E. 1030, and again in Ayers v State, 3 Ga.App. 305, 59 S.E. 924, the price at which an article is bought and sold may afford some evidence of value. It certainly would be a circumstance tending to show that the gun had value. As we held in the case of Wright v. State 1 Ga.App. 158, 57 S.E. 1050, value must be proved in all cases of larceny; but it is equally well settled that provided the articles alleged to have been stolen are shown to have a value it is not necessary...
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