State v. Phillips

• Decision Date: 12 February 1901
• Citation: 60 S.W. 1050,160 Mo. 503
• Parties: STATE v. PHILLIPS.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

60 S.W. 1050

160 Mo. 503

STATE v. PHILLIPS.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

February 12, 1901.

LARCENY — EVIDENCE OF OTHER OFFENSE.

1. On trial for theft of cows, to show that defendant took them with criminal intent, and did not, as claimed by him, buy them of a third person, evidence of his theft of another cow about the same time is admissible.

2. Remarks of the prosecuting attorney, though beyond the bounds of legitimate argument, will not work a reversal; defendant's guilt being conclusively shown.

Appeal from criminal court, Jackson county; John W. Wofford, Judge.

J. W. Phillips was convicted of grand larceny, and he appeals. Affirmed.

I. B. Kimbrell, J. S. Brooks, and H. S. Kimbrell, for appellant. The Attorney General and Sam B. Jeffries, for the State.

BURGESS, J.

At the September term, 1899, of the criminal court of Jackson county, the defendant was convicted, and his punishment fixed at two years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, under an indictment theretofore presented by the grand jury of said county, charging him with grand larceny in stealing a cow on the 11th day of May, 1898, the property of one Charles Harris. After unsuccessful motion for a new trial, defendant appeals. The evidence showed that on the night of May 11, 1898, defendant stole from the pasture of one Charles R. Harris, several miles from Kansas City, Mo., in Jackson county, two cows, which he drove to that city, and on the morning next following sold them to the firm of Fisher, Tower & Doyle. Harris went to Fisher, Tower & Doyle's place of business on the same day, and learned that one of the cows had been sent to pasture in Kansas, about 10 miles from Kansas City. He then went to the pasture and found her, identified her as his cow, and in a few days thereafter took possession of her. It was also shown that about the 21st day of April, 1898, defendant stole from one W. N. Hudspeth, in the same neighborhood, three milch cows, and disposed of them to the same parties. Defendant testified that he bought all the cows in Kansas City, Mo., — the Harris cows from a man whom he did not know, but who said his name was Owens, and the Hudspeth cows from a man whom he did not know, but who said that his name was Johnson, — and that he would know the men if he were to see them.

Defendant's first complaint is that error was committed in admitting evidence of the theft of the Hudspeth cattle. As a general rule, evidence of a separate and distinct offense is...