Case ID: ga-app_34/html/0599-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Bloodwoeth, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

16739.
    Strickland v. The State.
    Decided November 11, 1925.
    Indictment for larceny; from city court of Hinesville—Judge W. C. Hodges. June 20, 1925.
    The indictment charged the larceny of “three black turkey hens and one black turkey gobbler and one brown turkey gobbler.” The defendant demurred on the grounds that the description of the turkeys was insufficient, that their sizes, weight, or ages were not given, and that it was not alleged whether they were wild or tame, “said species being respectively different in form and having distinct natural' colors and marks, either specie being the subject of simple larceny.”
    Mrs. DeLoach, from whom the turkeys were alleged to have been stolen, testified: that in December, 1924, she lost turkeys from her yard; “there were three black turkey hens with white tips on their feathers; two of the gobblers were young, one black and one brown,” and she never saw them afterwards; Strickland, the defendant, lived about half a mile from there and owned turkeys which ranged towards her turkeys. Mary Eutch testified: that she lived about half a mile from Strickland, and he owned fifty-one head of turkeys, and her turkeys got together with them and she went to his place and saw in his pen four turkeys—three hens and a gobbler; that “part were right brass colored on the wings;” that she had seen Mrs. DeLoaclds turkeys about a week before, when at Mrs. DeLoaeh’s house, and these looked like Mrs. DeLoach’s turkeys; that Mrs. Strickland asked her to help find an owner for them, and she told Mrs. Strickland that it looked to her mind that they, were Mrs. DeLoach’s turkeys; she told Mrs. Strickland that “they were her turkeys;” she would not swear that they were Mrs. DeLoach’s turkeys. In another part of her testimony the witness stated that after she had seen these turkeys at the defendant’s house she saw him at her own house, and he asked her if she knew whose turkeys were shut up at his- house, and said that they were strange turkeys, but she did not know. Others testified that the defendant had turkeys in his yard that he said did not belong there, and that he said he did not know whose they'Wére. A witness testified that a short time before Christmas the defendant called him to look at four turkeys in coops at the defendant’s place, asked if he had seen anybody looking for any, and said he did not want strange ones; the witness did not find the owner. It was testified that 6n Tuesday before Christmas the defendant carried to Savannah and sold forty-seven turkeys which he got from a pen; that they were cooped in his stable. The defendant, in his statement at the trial, denied that he stole the turkeys.
   Bloodwoeth, J.

1. The court did not err in overruling the demurrer to the indictment.

2. The verdict is without evidence to support it, and the court erred in ' refusing to grant a new trial.

Judgment reversed.

Broyles, O. J., and Lulce, J., concur.

M. Price, for plaintiff in error.