Wagner v. State
| Decision Date | 18 June 1886 |
| Docket Number | 13,011 |
| Citation | 7 N.E. 896,107 Ind. 71 |
| Parties | Wagner v. The State |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Porter Circuit Court.
The judgment is affirmed with costs.
M. Nye L. A. Cole, D. J. Wile and F. E. Osborn, for appellant.
F. T Hord, Attorney General, W. B. Hord, and E. D. Crumpacker Prosecuting Attorney, for the State.
This was a prosecution against Lawrence Wagner for grand larceny, based upon an affidavit made by the prosecuting witness and an information filed by the prosecuting attorney.
The property charged to have been stolen was a horse, of the estimated value of one hundred dollars, belonging to John Nelson and Charles P. Nelson.
The cause was, by agreement, tried by the court without a jury. The defendant was found guilty as charged, and, in addition to the assessment of a fine against him, he was adjudged to be imprisoned in the State's prison for the term of two years, and to be disfranchised for a definite period of time.
The only question here is upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the finding of the circuit court.
John Nelson, the prosecuting witness, testified that the horse belonged to him and Charles P. Nelson, and was, with a bridle, taken from his stable in Porter county during the night succeeding the 1st day of January, 1886. Herman Stibbe and John Pike, respectively, testified that they were out hunting the next morning, that is to say, on the morning of the 2d day of January, 1886, and found the horse tied to a tree in the woods in Porter county, about three miles west of Michigan City, and several miles from where it was taken, where the undergrowth was thick; that a sack was lying on the ground near by containing horse feed and marked "Lorans Wagner"; that there was also a fire near by at which some cooking seemed to have been done; that as they approached the horse they saw the defendant walking rapidly away from the opposite side. Stibbe claimed to have been acquainted with the defendant for several years previously, and that he recognized him when he thus saw him walking away. Pike had no previous acquaintance with the defendant, but identified him at the trial as the person he saw hastening away from the horse at the time referred to. An hour or two later, the marshal of Michigan City finding the horse apparently abandoned, and still hitched in the woods, took charge of it, and on the following day caused it to be returned to its owner. In short, the evidence for the State made a well defined prima facie case of grand larceny against the defendant.
On behalf of the defendant several witnesses, more or less acquainted in the neighborhood in which he had lived testified to his previous good character, and other witnesses claimed very positively to have been with him, or to have seen him, as late as midnight on the night during which the horse was stolen, and again next morning at his house, in Laporte county, fourteen miles from where the horse was found in the woods. Still other witnesses claimed to have accompanied him during the forenoon of the 2d day of January, 1886, to the city of Laporte, where still others insisted he remained until the next day. As a witness in his own behalf, the defendant denied having been away from his own house during the night on which the horse was alleged to have been taken, or during the next morning until he started to...
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