State v. Heno

• Decision Date: 27 July 1934
• Citation: 119 Conn. 29,174 A. 181
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. HENO et al.

174 A. 181

119 Conn. 29

STATE v. HENO et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 27, 1934

Appeal from Superior Court, Litchfield County; Carl Foster, Judge.

Information against Frank D. Heno and others for the theft of certain intoxicating liquors brought to the Superior Court and tried to the jury. Verdict and judgment of guilty, and appeal by the accused.

No error.

J Clinton Roraback, of Canaan, and Thomas A. Keating, of Danbury, for appellants.

H Howard Roberts and Walter Holcomb, State's Atty., both of Torrington, for the State.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, and BANKS, JJ.

BANKS Judge.

The information charges eight accused with the theft of spirituous and intoxicating liquors from a dwelling house in Sharon. It was undisputed that the accused Bouton, French and Anthony stole several cases of Scotch whisky and assorted liquors and wines, and crocks of Bourbon whisky, in Sharon, and removed it to Millerton, N. Y., and that it was afterwards purchased by the accused Conrad Woycik and removed to the cellar of the house in Danbury occupied by him and his brother, the accused Henry Woycik. Anthony was not apprehended, and Bouton and French pleaded guilty to the information and testified upon the trial as witnesses for the state. It was the claim of the state that the appellants, the other five accused, Heno, Conrad and Henry Woycik, Hunt and Goff, received and concealed the stolen goods knowing them to be stolen. Under our statute (Gen. Stats. § 6116) the receiver of stolen goods may be prosecuted though the person who committed the theft has not been convicted. The state did not need to rely upon the statute since Bouton and French had pleaded guilty to the theft of the liquors. The appeal is from the denial of the motion to set aside the verdict as against the evidence, and for errors in the charge and the failure to charge as requested.

Upon the issue as to whether the appellants received and concealed the stolen liquors with knowledge that they were stolen the jury could reasonably have found the following facts: Some of the stolen liquor was stored in a room occupied by Bouton and French over a restaurant in Millerton, and the rest in an old barn in the rear of the restaurant. On the day after it was stolen Bouton took several bottles of the liquor to Heno's house in Danbury, and started to tell him where he got it, but was told by Heno that he didn't want to know anything about it. Heno and Anthony agreed that, in disposing of the liquor, they would tell the story that it had been given to an employee of an estate to settle a claim for wages. The next day Heno told Conrad Woycik about the liquor, and the latter, accompanied by Heno, Hunt, and Goff went to Millerton and examined the liquor, the boxes, and the labels in Bouton's room and the barn. While in the barn Bouton told Woycik that the liquor was " hot," meaning that it was stolen. After examining the liquor in the barn they returned to Bouton's room where Woycik, in the presence of the others, negotiated for the purchase of the liquor; a price of $486 was agreed upon, and it was agreed that they should return later that night and get the liquor. Hunt, Goff, and Conrad Woycik went back to Millerton in Goff's automobile, arriving there about 2 a. m. the next morning. Heno went in a truck driven by Henry Woycik, arriving there about half an hour earlier. Henry and Conrad Woycik and Hunt assisted in loading the liquor on the truck, and after it was loaded Hunt, Conrad Woycik, Goff, and Heno went to Bouton's room where Conrad Woycik gave Bouton $126 in cash and a check for $360 for the liquor. The truck and the automobile with the same occupants left Millerton about 4 a. m., and met in Danbury, and the liquor was taken to the Woycik house where it was concealed in the cellar. On eight or ten of the cases in which the liquor was contained the words " S. H. Jones, Sharon," were stenciled in black. When the liquor was discovered in the Woycik cellar the stencil marking had been planed off from all but one of the cases. Conrad Woycik asked Bouton, when they were examining the liquor in Millerton, why he had not taken the labels and names off the boxes.

Guilty knowledge upon the part of one accused of receiving stolen goods can ordinarily be established only as an inference from other proved facts and circumstances, and may be so inferred if the circumstances are such that a reasonable man of honest intentions, in the situation of the accused, should have come to that conclusion. The jury may consider not only the circumstances surrounding the accused but his own conduct then and immediately thereafter. State v. Weiner, 84 Conn. 411, 417, SO A. 198. Upon all the evidence in the case, which we have examined with care, the jury were justified in drawing the inference that each of the appellants knew that the liquors purchased from Bouton, and transferred to the Woycik cellar and there concealed, under the circumstances detailed in the evidence, were stolen property. The liquor was taken into the possession of Conrad Woycik and concealed in the cellar of his house. The jury could reasonably have found that the other appellants, standing by and watching and assisting in the operation of the purchase of the liquor and its transportation from Millerton to Danbury with the evident purpose of its concealment there, were aiding and abetting the crime, and were guilty as accessories thereto. State v. Weiner, supra.

Numerous exceptions are taken to the charge of the court, to the failure to charge as requested, and to the claimed inadequacy of the charge. The accused requested the court to charge that the law required that the testimony of Bouton, an accomplice in the crime charged, should be corroborated by evidence of a clear and convincing character, and excepted to the...