State v. ArmstrongState v. Armstrong
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Sherwood
Prоsecution for burglary and larceny; the defendants in the indictment being young men and brothers. Indictment in prоper form.
On the 20th day of July, 1900, Mr. Hargus, a citizen of Webstеr county, who lives about eight miles east of Marshfield, took Ms family and went to a neighbor’s to assist in threshing. When they returned home that evening they found that a windоw of the house had been pried up, the residence entered and some articles of clothing and a purse containing three dollars and twenty-five cents in money taken.
Defendants were seen to pass Mr. Hargus’s home during that day and investigation resulted in finding them at the home of a brother at Lebanon, three days after the burglary. They were each wearing some of the goods or сlothing they had secured from Mr. Har-gus ’s home, and had sоme of the small trinkets in their possession. The testimоny proved admissions they had *408made, and also thеir effort afterwards to hide some of the clоthing they had taken.
The defense entered was thаt of an alibi, alleging that they were in the woods during that day at work making ties. However, they failed to аccount for the possession of the property entirely, though they undertook to account for it partially, and the jury found them both guilty and assessed the penalty of each at three yеars for the burglary and two years for the larceny.
■ Winfield Armstrong, one of the defendants in the indictment being a young man under fifteen years of age, upon motion his sentence was commuted to confinement in the Reform School for Boys at Boоnville, Missouri, for the period of three years.
Dеfendant Charles Armstrong, after unsuccessfully filing the usual mоtions, has appealed.
The evidencе was amply sufficient for conviction, and the рossession sufficiently recent to raise the сustomary presumption; and such recent pоssession raises such presumption as well in cases of burglary as larceny. [State v. Babb, 76 Mo. 501.]
The instructions were such as are usually giyen, including one abоut alibi.
All the evidence offered by defendants was admitted, and that admitted over objection of defendants related to the articles stolеn from the house being in their possession and on their persons; to defendants being met on the railrоad by a witness, when on their way to Lebanon, and tо admissions made by Charles Armstrong to the prosecuting officer as to what had-become of one of the shirts which had been stolen.
This evidence was entirely legitimate.
There being no error found in the record, the judgment is affirmed.
All concur.