Sikes v. State

• Decision Date: 01 December 1894
• Citation: 28 S.W. 688
• Parties: SIKES v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

28 S.W. 688

SIKES v. STATE.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

December 1, 1894.

Appeal from district court, Williamson county; F. G. Morris, Judge.

J. J. Sikes was convicted of theft, and appeals. Affirmed.

Glasscock & Strickland, for appellant. R. L. Henry, for the State.

HURT, P. J.

This is an appeal from a conviction of theft. It appears from the record that J. H. Beveridge owned two Laffel turbine water wheels, which were shipped by him from Arkansas to Round Rock, in Williamson county, Tex., in February, 1881, in connection with a lot of other machinery. The other machinery was placed, by direction of Beveridge, in a warehouse at that place; but the wheels he had unloaded from the cars, and placed on the railroad platform. They remained there till the spring of 1882, when he was notified by the railroad agent to remove them from the platform, and he sent his son there from ____ county, where Beveridge then lived, to do so. The wheels were then placed on the railroad right of way, and there remained until 1891. In the winter of 1891 the appellant, Sikes, wrote to the agent of the railroad at Round Rock, and directed him to ship the wheels to him at Houston. This was done. Appellant, in the meantime, had sold one of the wheels to one D. P. Sheppard. Appellant was indicted in the district court of Williamson county for the theft of the wheels, and was convicted. There is no evidence in the record that appellant, after the wheels were shipped to him, to Houston, ever had actual possession or control of the wheels.

Counsel for appellant submit three propositions, either of which, if correct, they contend, will require the reversal of this judgment, as follows: (1) That as appellant never had actual possession of the wheels, or either of them, he cannot be guilty of theft; (2) that appellant did not take the wheels, for he was not in Williamson county, when and where they were taken; (3) that, if he did take them, they had been abandoned by their owner, and were not the subject of theft. A solution of the second of these questions settles the first also. The freight agent at Round Rock, who did take the wheels, was the innocent agent of appellant. He took them under the direction and at the request of appellant. He acted for him, and his possession was the possession of appellant. The agent was innocent of any guilty participation in the taking. The appellant was therefore properly indicted as the principal in the offense. The property was...