Waldon v. State

• Decision Date: 25 February 1914
• Docket Number: No. 22,457.,22,457.
• Parties: WALDON v. STATE.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

182 Ind. 112
104 N.E. 300

WALDON
v.
STATE.

No. 22,457.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Feb. 25, 1914.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Gibson County; O. M. Welborn, Special Judge.

William Waldon was convicted of grand larceny, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Woodfin D. Robinson and William E. Stilwell, both of Evansville, for appellant. Thomas M. Honan, Atty. Gen., and Thomas H. Bramaman, Deputy Atty. Gen., for the State.

SPENCER, J.

Appellant was tried and convicted of the charge of grand larceny. On appeal he has assigned error in overruling his motion for a new trial, and under this assignment insists that the court erred in giving to the jury on its own motion instructions 10 and 11, and in refusing to give instructions 5, 10, and 17 tendered by appellant.

Instruction No. 11 given by the court reads as follows: “The charge in the indictment that the defendant, William Waldon, feloniously took and carried away the money, as well as each of the other material averments in the indictment, may be established by either direct or circumstantial evidence. If the evidence fairly shows that the defendant, Waldon, while traveling on an east-bound passenger train on the Southern Railway, and soon after leaving Mt. Carmel, Ill., on the day named, observed that one Oscar Hochmeister had in his possession a large amount of money, bills and notes, which circulate as money, the money mentioned in the indictment, that thereupon the defendant conferred with other persons and united and combined with such other persons for the purpose of feloniously taking and stealing money from the said Hochmeister, when opportunity offered, that pursuant to, and in furtherance of, such unlawful purpose the other persons engaged in such unlawful combinations on the approach of said train to this city, and while in this county said other parties, under pretense of making ready to alight from said train, created a commotion among the passengers who were preparing to alight from the train by violently jostling, shoving, and jamming against the said Hochmeister, that the defendant, Waldon, was following close to said Hochmeister for the purpose of aiding and abetting said unlawful scheme, and while, during said commotion, the defendant, or any one of the parties engaged in such unlawful combination, and in furtherance thereof, feloniously took and carried away the wallet containing said money from the said Hochmeister, in the view of the case here suggested the defendant should not be acquitted on the ground of a...