Stoddard v. State

• Decision Date: 20 June 1907
• Parties: STODDARD v. STATE.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

132 Wis. 520

112 N.W. 453

STODDARD

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

June 20, 1907.

Error to Circuit Court, Richland County; Geo. Clementson, Judge.

Maurice Stoddard was convicted of horse theft, and he brings error. Affirmed.

On September 14, 1900, plaintiff in error was convicted, in the circuit court for Richland county, of stealing a horse, a buggy, and a harness, the property of one Erotus Chandler. The information charges that he on June 30, 1906, committed this offense, in violation of section 4416, St. 1898. There was a motion for a new trial, and a motion in arrest of judgment for error committed on the trial. Both of these motions the court denied. The accused was sentenced to confinement in the state prison for two years. The evidence adduced shows that plaintiff in error is a man about 25 years of age, residing on a farm about six miles from the city of Richland Center. On June 30, 1906, he was at Richland Center during the greater part of the day and a part of the evening. Mr. Erotus Chandler was at Richland Center this evening. He drove his bay mare, hitched to a single top buggy. When he arrived in the city, he hitched the mare in a hitching yard back of one of the city stores. This was about 8 o'clock in the evening. At about 11 o'clock he returned to this yard for his rig, and then discovered that the mare and the buggy were gone. He had given no permission nor authorized any one to take the mare and buggy. He notified the officers of the disappearance, and upon search by him, the officers, and others the buggy and harness were found in a highway about six miles from the city. The buggy was tipped over on its side, and was somewhat broken. The harness was near the buggy, broken and cut. The mare was found some distance from the buggy. This was on the road leading from Richland Center to the home of the plaintiff in error. One witness testified that he had known the plaintiff in error for eight or ten years; that about 10 o'clock the evening this horse and buggy were taken, while standing at the side of his horse, adjusting a part of the harness of his horse, which was hitched in this yard near Chandler's rig, he saw the plaintiff in error come into the yard, pass by him at a short distance, step up to a rig consisting of a single top buggy, hitched next but one to his rig, and then drive it away; that he did not know whose horse and buggy it was; and that neither he nor the plaintiff in error spoke to the other. There is testimony that at about 11 o'clock that evening plaintiff in error, while on his way home, met persons in the highway at a point beyond where the buggy and horse were found. The sheriff and another testified that the accused stated after arrest that he took the horse and buggy. On trial he denied having made these statements and denied having taken the horse and buggy, and denied having been in the hitching yard at any time during this day and evening. His father and mother state that on his way home he stopped at their home, some three miles from Richland Center, and had a drink of water and something to eat. They were contradicted by evidence tending to show that they stated before the trial that he had not been there that evening. Plaintiff in error also testified that on his way home he met a Mr. Cook in the highway at a point beyond where the buggy and horse were found, but that he had seen no buggy in the highway. He prosecutes this writ of error from this court, and avers that the judgment of conviction should be reversed, because the verdict is not sustained by the evidence, and because of errors committed upon the trial.L. H. Bancroft, for plaintiff in error.

F. L. Gilbert, Atty. Gen., and A. C. Titus, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

SIEBECKER, J. (after stating the facts).

The evidentiary facts were such that the jury were justified in inferring that plaintiff in error took the horse and buggy at the time alleged without permission or authority from the owner, and drove the horse from Richland Center into the country to the place in the public highway where the buggy and harness were found some time shortly after 11 o'clock that night.

It is urged that the evidence of the sheriff and another witness, to the effect that the plaintiff in error made statements at the time of his arrest and after confinement in the county jail admitting that he took this rig into his possession and drove it away, should not be admitted. Plaintiff in error denies having made any such statements. The circumstances testified to as having existed at the time they were made discloses nothing in the nature of any promise that it would be for his benefit or advantage to make them, nor does it appear but that, if made at all, they were made voluntarily by him. We discover nothing in the nature of the statements claimed to have been so made, or in the circumstances under which they are alleged to have been made, that affects their competency as evidence in the case.

It is contended that the evidence in its aspect most favorable to show guilt is not sufficient to establish that, if the accused in fact took the horse and buggy as charged, he did so with the intent of permanently depriving the owner of his property, and that the evidence, at most, sustains no finding other than that such taking constituted a mere trespass. This is urged upon the theory that the...