16 Ga. App. 328 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1915
1. In a prosecution for larceny, the value of the stolen property must not only be alleged and proved, but the ownership thereof must be laid (if known) in some person or persons (Buffington v. State, 124 Ga. 24, 52 S. E. 19), or if the owner be unknown, this fact must also be alleged (Stringfield v. State, 25 Ga. 476; Thomas v. State, 96 Ga. 311, 22 S. E. 956), and an indictment in which the ownership of the goods alleged to have been stolen is laid in a partnership, without alleging the names of the partners Composing the firm, is fatally defective. Buffington v. State, supra. A special property coupled with lawful possession
Under the law of Georgia (Civil Code, § 3705), whenever the relation of landlord and cropper exists, the title to the crops grown and raised upon the lands of the landlord by the cropper is vested in the landlord until he has received his part of the crops so raised, and is fully paid for all advances, made to the cropper in the year they were raised, to aid in making the crops. Nevertheless, the cropper has an interest in the crop raised by him, though it be not such an interest as he could assert in an action of trover, or against his landlord except in a certain limited way;.for section 3707 of the Civil Code declares that “The title to the crop, subject to the interest of the cropper therein, and the possession of the land remain in the owner.” It has been held that the cropper “has a property interest in the growing crop,” which he may mortgage. Fountain v. Fountain, 7 Ga. App. 361 (66 S. E. 1020). See same case, 10 Ga. App. 758 (73 S. E. 1096). Also, it is well settled that the cropper may foreclose his laborer’s lien against the landlord for his part of the crop after rent and advances are paid (McElmurray v. Turner, 86 Ga. 215, 12 S. E. 359; Lewis v. Owens, 124
3. The evidence for the State showed that on or about December 35, 1914, about 100 pounds of seed-cotton was lost, or disappeared, from a cotton-basket, which had been left in the field rented from some one else by Dan Morman and in the possession of his cropper Ennis Johnson, who worked with him on halves. The cotton was taken at night, and on the following day tracks were discovered, leading from the cotton-basket, in the field, directly towards the house of the defendant. The landlord and the cropper who owned the cotton went to the house of the accused, accompanied by Mr. Keen, a white neighbor, the defendant’s shoes were carefully examined, and it was found that “his shoe-bottom and the sole of his shoe was broken and made a track identically the same as the ones that were there that we traced towards Jim Eandolph’s house; the shoe was kinder run down too,” and the “left shoe was turned over further than the right one.” The defendant was requested to place his feet, with the worn shoes thereon, in the tracks, and readily did so, when it was seen that his shoes fitted the tracks exactly. The tracks, however, did not come to the defendant’s house, but stopped at a point about 75 or 100 yards from the house. The defendant-stated at the time that he knew nothing about the tracks, though he admitted that the shoes he had on and which were compared with the tracks were the only shoes he possessed; and he said, when told that some cotton was missing, that he did not have any cotton, but there was found in ■his house a pile of cotton which he then said belonged to his father-in-law, Ben Wilson. The evidence showed that the defendant’s house was only about a quarter of a mile from the place in the field .where the basket from which the cotton had been stolen was found, that his father-in-law, Ben Wilson, was farming about a mile dis
However, when we come to review the entire case, it will be seen that the only facts connecting the accused with the commission of the alleged crime were the tracks identified as his, leading from the basket in the direction of the house, and some locks of cotton which appeared to have dropped along the way. No part of the cotton found in his house was identified by any witness as all or a part of the stolen cotton, nor did any witness dispute the testimony of Wilson to the effect that all the cotton in the house of the accused was the property of Wilson, or that he had as much cotton belonging to him as was found in that house. It is true, Wilson said he could not of his own knowledge assert whether the accused had placed in that room any cotton besides his own, but this admission on his part did not establish that there was in the defendant’s house one pound of cotton not claimed by Wilson or not belonging to Mm. The evidence relating to the tracks tended very strongly to establish that they were made by shoes belonging to the accused, and probably on the night when the crime was committed, but as held in the Cummings case, 110 Ga. 293 (35 S. E. 117), where tracks were relied on to connect the accused with the crime, and tracks were seen near the place of the crime, which must have been made on the night it was committed, and “corresponded in minute
The defendant’s denial that he had any cotton before he ascertained that a search was imminent looks suspicious, but, on the other hand, what more natural than his assertion that he had no cotton, when he had just been acquainted with the fact that seed-cotton belonging to his known enemies (according to some of the proof) was missing, and that they and the white man with them were in search of the thief. His denial may have been made in good faith and may have been intended to mean only that he personally had no cotton in the house occupied by him,.or it may be that he did not at the time recall that his father-in-law had cotton in the small room attached to that part of the house occupied by him, or, as already suggested, he may have feared to admit that there was any cotton in the house, even though he was perfectly innocent, and may have resorted to a lie in the hope that no search would be made of the premises. Likewise, the embarrassment which one witness testified the defendant displayed, when they approached his house the morning after they discovered the crime,
The trial judge erred in overruling the motion for a new trial.
Judgment reversed.