Wallace v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 27 April 1920 |
| Citation | 220 S.W. 1051,187 Ky. 775 |
| Parties | WALLACE v. COMMONWEALTH. |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Carlisle County.
Jack Wallace was convicted of feloniously breaking into a storehouse with intent to steal, and he appeals. Affirmed.
R. B Flatt, of Clinton, for appellant.
Chas I. Dawson, Atty. Gen., Thos. B. McGregor, Asst. Atty. Gen and W. P. Hughes, Commonwealth's Atty., Ben. S. Adams and Roy Shelbourn, all of Bardwell, for the Commonwealth.
The appellant, Jack Wallace, was jointly indicted with Dewey Goins for the crime of feloniously breaking into a storehouse with the intent to steal therefrom. He was found guilty of the crime by a verdict of a jury, and in accordance with the verdict sentenced to serve a term of three years in the penitentiary. He appeals from the judgment and seeks a reversal upon the following grounds:
(1) The verdict of the jury is against the law and evidence.
(2) The court failed to properly instruct the jury.
(3) The court erred to his prejudice in refusing him a continuance of the prosecution when it was called for trial.
(4) The court erred to his prejudice in overruling his motion to postpone passing judgment upon the verdict of the jury until the following term of the court.
The grounds will be considered in the order stated.
(a) The basis for the contention that the verdict is against the evidence is really a claim that there was not sufficient evidence to sustain the verdict, in that Dewey Goins testified upon the trial to all such facts as were necessary to prove the appellant's guilt, and that, Goins being an accomplice, there was not sufficient evidence from any other source to connect appellant with the commission of the crime. Goins testified that he and appellant together broke and entered the storehouse, which was in the town of Bardwell, at night, with the intent to steal therefrom, and took from the storehouse coats, shoes, coat suits, underwear, pants, etc to the value, as proven, of about $400; that they also took therefrom a suit case each, in which they put the stolen goods, each of them among other things having taken two pairs of shoes; they walked to a deep "cut," through which the railroad passes near Wickliffe, arriving there about the rising of the sun, on the following morning. They hid the suit cases containing the fruits of their burglarious venture in a hollow, in the woods near the "cut," and then proceeded to the residence of Mrs. Bass, who lived several hundreds of yards distant, and on the way saw and bespoke James Manning, who was engaged at a tobacco barn in curing the tobacco with fire; and on returning upon that afternoon, about 3 o'clock, they saw a colored man engaged in working in the "cut." Manning and the colored man corroborate the above statements, and the colored man testified that Wallace when he left the "cut" on the afternoon was carrying a suit case. Manning and the colored man fix the time, when they thus saw appellant and Goins in company with each other, as being about the time they heard of the store being broken and entered. The goods were...
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...defendant has no theory of the case requiring a specific instruction, to present it, where his defense is an alibi. See Wallace v. Com., 187 Ky. 775, 220 S. W. 1051. Luttrell's sole defense here is an alibi. He says, and the witnesses who testified for him all say, he was in the house when ......
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