Walls v. State

• Decision Date: 15 October 1890
• Citation: 25 N.E. 457,125 Ind. 400
• Parties: Walls v. State.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

125 Ind. 400

25 N.E. 457

Walls

v.State.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Oct. 15, 1890.

Appeal from circuit court, Crawford county; W. T. Zenor, Judge.

Peckinpaugh & Weathers and C. L. Jewett, for appellant. L. T. Michener, Atty. Gen., for appellee.

Coffey, J.

On the 25th day of March, 1889, the grand jury of Crawford county returned an indictment against the appellant and one Francis Belcher charging that the said Belcher and the appellant on the 6th day of November, 1884, at said county, unlawfully and feloniously, violently and forcibly, made an assault upon Alexander Brown, and, by putting the said Brown in fear, did steal and carry away from his person $65 of the current money of the United States, of the value of $65. The appellant entered a plea of not guilty, and upon motion of the said Belcher separate trials were awarded him and the appellant. This cause was tried by a jury, who returned a verdict finding the appellant guilty, as charged, upon which the court, over a motion for a new trial, rendered judgment. The assignment of errors calls in question the propriety of the ruling of the circuit court in overruling the motion for a new trial.

On the trial of the cause the state was permitted to prove, by one Thomas Bryant, over the objection of the appellant, that he, the said Bryant, on the day before the robbery charged in the indictment, had a conversation with Francis Belcher, jointly indicted with the appellant, and in his absence, in which the said Belcher said to the witness: “‘Those fellows, Zandy and old Mozy, [meaning Alexander Walls and Moses Roberts,] are going out to get some money to-night.’ I understood him to mean Moses Roberts, and Walls, the defendant. He said: ‘They want you to go with them.’ I said: ‘Walls owes me now, and he ought not to ask me to go his security.’ Belcher said: ‘They will not borrow it. They will get it another way.”’ The state was also permitted to prove by one George King, over the objection of the appellant, that in a conversation between the said Belcher and the wife of the witness, in the absence of the appellant, on the Sunday following the robbery charged in the indictment, the wife of the witness, in speaking of the robbery, said to Belcher: “It is a pity some one was not up there with a pistol;” to which Belcher replied “that he and Walls were right there at the gate at the time the robbery was committed, and that they each had a bull-dog pistol.” The evidence in this cause tends to prove that on the night of the 6th day of November, 1884, shortly after dark, seven or eight men entered the house of Alexander Brown, in Crawford county, and robbed him of a sum of money amountingto about $65. Neither Brown nor any of his family were able to identify the robbers, as they all wore masks except one, this one not masked, being a stranger to both Brown and his family. The general rule is that the declarations of a third party, made in the absence of the accused, are not admissible in evidence against such accused when placed upon his trial. Turbeville v. State, 42 Ind. 490. One of the well-known exceptions to the general rule exists in cases of the perpetration of crimes by several persons, when once a conspiracy or combination is established. In such cases, the acts or declarations of one co-conspirator or accomplice in the prosecution of the enterprise is considered the act or declaration of all, and, therefore, imputable to all. All are deemed to assent to or command what is said or done by any one in furtherance of the common object. The principle on which the acts and declarations of the other conspirators, and the acts done at different times, are admitted in...