State v. Hunter
| Decision Date | 15 March 1927 |
| Docket Number | 5778. |
| Citation | 137 S.E. 534,103 W.Va. 377 |
| Parties | STATE v. HUNTER. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Submitted March 8, 1927.
Syllabus by the Court.
Mere suspicion of guilt, arising from evidence which does not prove the actual commission of the crime charged, is not sufficient to sustain a conviction.
Where the evidence relied on to convict one of crime is in whole or in part circumstantial, the accused is entitled to an acquittal unless the fact of guilt is proved to the actual exclusion of every reasonable hypothesis of innocence.
Error to Circuit Court, Greenbrier County.
Jennings Hunter was convicted of the larceny of hogs, and he brings error. Judgment reversed, verdict set aside, and a new trial awarded.
Jarrett & Driscoll, of Lewisburg, for plaintiff in error.
Howard B. Lee, Atty. Gen., and R. A. Blessing, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Defendant was convicted of the larceny of a sow valued at $25 and two shoats of the value of $15. The error assigned is the refusal of the trial court to instruct the jury that the defendant was not guilty of grand larceny, because the state failed to prove that the sow known to have been in his possession was the one lost by or taken from the prosecuting witness L. J. Le Masters, and the court's refusal to set aside the verdict of the jury on defendant's motion based on the same ground of lack of proof of a felony.
The state's evidence is that in the fall of the year Le Masters turned out on the mast or acorns near his home a black sow and her two pigs. He had purchased the sow from Kenneth McMillion about three years before; and at that time she was marked by a crop off of each ear. Le Masters' mark was a crop off the right ear and an underbit or underkeel in the same ear. After purchasing the sow Le Masters put an underkeel in her right ear, and before turning the three hogs out on the mast he marked the two pigs by cropping and marking with an underkeel the right ear of each. The three hogs were afterwards seen in the vicinity of McMillion's home, some two miles from where Le Masters lived. Le Masters says that when he failed to find the hogs upon learning that defendant had been seen driving a sow and two shoats from near McMillion's place and over the mountain to his home, he went to defendant's place, which was some ten miles distant, but that the latter denied having driven any hogs over the mountain from near the McMillion place; that after spending the night in the vicinity, he returned to defendant's home, and was shown two shoats in a pen, one of which looked like his pig; but that he could not have sworn they were his pigs because their ears had recently been "cut half or more," and the pigs were still covered with blood. He made two or three later trips to look at the pigs and finally decided they were his. It does not appear whether the ears of these pigs were cut down far enough to destroy Le Masters' underkeel, if he had in fact so marked them. On the fourth trip Le Masters took with him two members of the state police force and one Golden Jones. He and Jones testified that when they approached Hunter's place, the latter ran rapidly up the mountain calling back to some one to "get the hogs in the clear." The state police were not called as witnesses. Other alleged suspicious circumstances are relied on by the state; that defendant drove the hogs home in the nighttime, a distance of some ten miles, and slaughtered the sow the next day, and that he cut a part of the pigs' ears off and put them up in a pen. The witness Bob Walkup testified that while searching for one of his hogs in the vicinity of the place where the hogs driven home by defendant were afterwards found, he saw these hogs and reported the fact to defendant. Walkup assisted Hunter in driving the...
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State v. Masters
...to sustain a conviction." See also Syllabus Point 1, State v. Craft, 165 W.Va. 741, 272 S.E.2d 46 (1980); Syllabus Point 2, State v. Hunter, 103 W.Va. 377, 137 S.E. 534 (1927). We believe that sufficient evidence was introduced at trial to convince an impartial jury of the defendant's guilt......
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State v. Wolfe
... ... evidence, such evidence, if relied on, must be of such ... character that it leads to but one fair and reasonable ... conclusion, pointing to the defendant to the exclusion of all ... others as the guilty person. State v. Snider, 106 ... W.Va. 309, 145 S.E. 607; State v. Hunter, 103 W.Va ... 377, 137 S.E. 534. [113 W.Va. 462] In other words, ... circumstantial evidence will not support a conviction, if it ... be as consistent with the innocence of the defendant as with ... his guilt ... Is the ... deduction that the defendant, Wolfe, is innocent ... ...
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State v. Kelly
...172 W.Va. 602, 309 S.E.2d 101 (1983); Syllabus Point 1, State v. Craft, 165 W.Va. 741, 272 S.E.2d 46 (1980); Syllabus Point 2, State v. Hunter, 103 W.Va. 377, 137 S.E. 534 (1927); Syllabus Point 4, State v. McHenry, 93 W.Va. 396, 117 S.E. 143 In this case, we believe the evidence when viewe......
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State v. Mounts
... ... 53 C.J. 536, sec. 92 ... Where circumstantial evidence is [120 W.Va. 666] relied on, ... the accused is entitled to an acquittal unless the fact of ... guilt is proven to the actual exclusion of every reasonable ... hypothesis of innocence. State v. Hunter, 103 W.Va ... 377, 137 S.E. 534; State v. Kapp, 109 W.Va. 487, 155 ... S.E. 537; State v. Johnson, 104 W.Va. 586, 140 S.E ... 532. A mere suspicion that the goods were stolen is not ... enough. A reasonable doubt of defendant's guilt clearly ... appears, calling for a reversal of the ... ...