77 Iowa 557 | Iowa | 1889
It will be observed that the property was in the exclusive possession of the defendant very soon after it was stolen. It was therefore incumbent on him to make some reasonable explanation of his possession. One C. Wesley was a witness in behalf of the state, and he testified that he saw a man whom he believed to be the defendant in possession of a team of the same description as the stolen horses, and leading them up Main street, in the city of Council Bluffs, on the morning of November 8, 1886, and that he saw him about nine o’clock that morning at the dummy depot on Broadway, with the same team, and that he took them on the transfer train, which started towards Omaha. This witness was examined upon the preliminary examination, and upon the first trial, and it appears from the record that his testimony upon the last trial, as to identifying the defendant as being the person in possession of the team at Council Bluffs, is not consistent with his testimony given on the first trial, and at the preliminary hearing. And another witness, who was present at the time the team was put upon the transfer, testified that the animals were in possession of a tall man and a short man, and that neither of them was the defendant. Another witness stated that he saw a tall man and a short man in the neighborhood of where the team was stolen on the evening before they were taken. Several other witnesses testified that the defendant was in the city of Omaha on the night in which the hórses were stolen.
The principal question presented in argument is that the verdict is not supported by the evidence. We have set out the evidence somewhat in detail, for the» purpose of showing that it presented a proper case for the determination of a jury. There is no such absence
IY. It appears to us that the charge given by the court to the jury, and the manner in which the trial was conducted, were fair, and even liberal, towards the defendant, and we discover no reason why the judgment should not be enforced. '• Affirmed.