Case ID: sw_197/html/1109-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PRENDERGAST, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

FAUDOA v. STATE.
    (No. 4632.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    Oct. 17, 1917.)
    Larceny <®=»61 — Theft from Person — Sufficiency of Evidence.
    In a prosecution for theft from the person, evidence held insufficient to sustain conviction.
    Appeal from District Court, El Paso County.
    Alejo Faudoa was convicted of theft from the person, and appeals.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Sydney Smith, of El Paso, for appellant. E. B. Hendricks, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
   PRENDERGAST, J.

E. Prieto and appellant were jointly indicted for theft from the person of Babe Harris. They severed, and appellant was convicted.

Babe Harris, a woman, and her companion, were together on the streets of El Paso. She held in her hand her purse, with some money and other property in it. Prieto and appellant, it seems, walked up some stairs, out of a clubroom, onto the street, where Babe Harris and her companion were. Prieto snatched her purse and ran. She and her companion gave chase, but failed to catch him. Some 30 minutes later appellant was arrested. Prieto fled to New Mexico, and was arrested later, and brought back from there. Appellant was tried as a principal with Prieto. The evidence- wholly fails to disclose that he said or did anything whatever before, at the time of, or after, in connection with Prieto, so as to show he was a principal with Prieto. The sole fact shown was that the two walked up out of the clubroom just before Prieto snatched Babe Harris’ purse. The two persons were not shown to have been acquainted with one another, or to have been together before they walked up out of a clubroom, or after that. When appellant was arrested, some half hour later, Be had just had a $10 bill changed, and had $9 in change on his person at the' time. Neither the $10 bill nor any of the money that he had on him was of the character or denomination of the money, that was snatched by Prieto from Babe Harris.

The evidence is wholly insufficient to, authorize appellant’s conviction. Unless the state, by additional testimony, connects appellant with Prieto in the theft in such a way as to make him a principal with Prieto, the court should instruct his acquittal. He may be guilty, but the evidence in this case wholly fails to sñow it.

• The judgment is reversed and remanded. 
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