State v. Yandle

• Citation: 66 S.W. 532,166 Mo. 589
• Parties: STATE v. YANDLE.
• Decision Date: 04 February 1902
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

66 S.W. 532

166 Mo. 589

STATE v. YANDLE.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

February 4, 1902.

BURGLARY — INDICTMENT — EVIDENCE — OBJECTIONS.

1. Indictment for burglary need not state the value of the goods stolen, larceny in commission of burglary being a felony without regard to such value.

2. Recent possession of goods taken by burglars is prima facie evidence of the burglary as well as of the larceny.

3. If evidence is admissible for any purpose, objection merely that it is incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial will not allow review of its admission.

4. To connect defendant with the ownership and possession, when arrested, of a telescope trunk in the room with him, in which were the stolen goods, testimony that he claimed clothing therein is pertinent.

5. Declarations of third persons that they had seen defendants pass on the morning of the burglary is hearsay.

6. Evidence that another had been convicted of the burglary is not admissible to show that defendant was not guilty.

Appeal from circuit court, Webster county; Argus Cox, Judge.

David Yandle was convicted of burglary, and appeals. Affirmed.

L. O. Neider, for appellant. The Attorney General and Perry S. Rader, for the State.

GANTT, J.

The defendant was indicted at the March term, 1900, of the circuit court of Webster county, for burglary and larceny. On the 18th of October, 1900, he was tried and convicted of both burglary and larceny from a dwelling house. The defendant was duly arraigned, and entered his plea of not guilty. The indictment was against defendant and James Yandle jointly. A severance was granted, and they were tried separately. From an offer of the conviction of James Yandle, by defendant, it seems that James was also convicted of the same offense. The evidence quite conclusively shows that on the 2d day of November, 1899, the dwelling house of H. C. Carpenter, situated in Webster county, was broken open in his absence, and a suit of clothes of the value of $10, belonging to said Carpenter, and in said house at the time, was stolen and carried away. The proof that the lock was broken and the house burglarized prior to 1 o'clock of November 2, 1899, was established by Carpenter and Keeler, who testified to locking it when they left that morning to haul some wood for a neighbor, and to finding the lock broken and the clothes stolen when they returned about 1 o'clock that afternoon. The evidence further disclosed that on the same day of the burglary the defendant and James Yandle left for Kansas. About the 1st of December, 1900, they returned to Webster county, and the town of Seymour City in said county, a station on the Kansas City, Ft. Scott & Memphis Railroad, and were arrested by W. H. Clay, the constable of that precinct, at a two-room cottage, usually occupied by Mrs. Hostetter, but she was absent at the time. He found defendant, David Yandle, under the bed. Some 15 minutes after the arrest by the constable, the deputy sheriff, Newton Ward, arrived, and found in the room where these two were a telescope trunk containing various articles of attire, among which were a blue coat and vest, which were fully identified by several witnesses besides Carpenter as his coat and vest which were stolen when his house was burglarized. Other witnesses testified that this defendant claimed the suit as his own. The defense was an alibi, and the defendant's father, brother, and sister testified to a state of facts which, if credited, would have rendered it impossible for defendant to have committed the burglary and larceny at the time at which it was fixed by the state's witnesses. Defendant also testified that James Yandle bought the suit of clothes and a gun from a stranger, for $2.25, on November 2, 1899, and that at James' request he put on the suit and wore it to prevent James carrying them.

The indictment, omitting caption and formal attestation, is as follows: "The grand jurors for the state of...