Truett v. State

Decision Date05 February 1914
PartiesTRUETT v. STATE.
CourtAlabama Court of Appeals

Appeal from Law Court, Pike County; T.L. Borum, Judge.

Mitchell Truett was convicted of petit larceny, and he appeals. Affirmed.

The witness Alex Johnson testified: That certain articles of jewelry were taken from his house about December 26, 1911 among them a gold shirt button, valued at about $2. (This button was introduced and identified by witness as his.) That, at the time he missed the box with the jewelry in it he and one Chancellor went out to look for tracks, and found a shoe track in the soft ground approaching the house, and traced it until it got to the yard, where it could not be further traced; and that on the other side of the yard leading from the house a barefoot track went through the soft ground to a point where it looked as if some one had sat down, and from there on the track was that of one wearing shoes. The witness also testified that he measured and compared the tracks, and that they were the same; that he did not follow the tracks, but left Mr. Chancellor. There was other evidence tending to show the giving of the button by defendant, Truett, to another as security in a crap game, and it finally returned to Mr. Johnson.

R.C Brickell, Atty. Gen., and W.L. Martin, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

PELHAM J.

The defendant was convicted of petit larceny. The article stolen was a gold shirt button of the value of $2, the property of one Alex Johnson.

No exception is shown by the bill of exceptions to have been reserved, except to the action of the court in refusing to grant the defendant's motion to exclude the evidence, and discharge the defendant, on the ground that the corpus delicti had not been proven. It is not indispensable to the proof of the corpus delicti that it should be proven by positive direct evidence. It may be proven by facts and circumstances from which the jury might legally infer that the offense has been committed. Ryan v. State, 100 Ala. 94, 14 So. 868. The testimony of Johnson afforded ample evidence from which the jury could legally infer that the offense charged had been committed in the present case. The evidence of the commission of the offense, and the defendant's guilty connection therewith, was sufficient to submit the case to the jury, and the court properly refused the general charge requested by the defendant.

No error is shown, and the judgment of...

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3 cases
  • Stewart v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Appeals
    • 15 Febrero 1921
    ...delicti may be proven by circumstances from which the jury might reasonably infer that the offense had been committed. Truetts Case, 10 Ala.App. 108, 64 So. 529; Pappemburg Case, 10 Ala.App. 224, 65 So. 418; Hunt Case, Ala. 1, 33 So. 329. There was no error in permitting the witness Weed to......
  • Smith v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Appeals
    • 29 Junio 1918
    ... ... delicti that it should be proven by positive direct evidence ... It may be proven by facts and circumstances from which the ... jury might legally infer that the offense has been committed ... Ryan v. State, 100 Ala. 94, 14 So. 868; Truett ... v. State, 10 Ala.App. 108, 64 So. 529. In the instant ... case, the testimony of state's witnesses Chandler, King ... and Gates afforded ample evidence from which the jury could ... legally infer that the offense charged had been committed ... The ... objection of the defendant ... ...
  • McWhorter v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Appeals
    • 30 Junio 1917
    ... ... delicti that it should be proven by positive direct evidence ... It may be proven by facts and circumstances from which the ... jury might legally infer that the offense has been committed ... Ryan v. State, 100 Ala. 94, 14 So. 868; Truett ... v. State, 10 Ala.App. 108, 64 So. 529 ... A ... careful examination of this record and of all the testimony ... in the case fails to disclose any proof by any witness, ... either for the state or for the defendant, that the cotton in ... question was raised upon the Tatum land ... ...

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