Case ID: ala-app_11/html/0314-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PELHAM, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Harris v. The State.
    
      Burglary.
    
    (Decided December 17, 1914.
    66 South. 876.)
    1. Indictment mil Information; Sufficiency; Form. — An indictment charging a crime in the form iDrescribed by the Code for such offense is sufficient.
    2. Same; Evidence; Sufficiency. — The evidence examined and held sufficient to require a submission thereof to the jury on the question of defendant’s guilt or innocence.
    3. Witnesses; Independent Recollection; Memorandum. — Where a witness was introduced to show the amount of goods stolen, and testified that before the burglary he took an inventory of the contents of the magazine by actual, xsersonal count and listed same on a Xiaxier, he is testifying from his indexiendent, xfersonal recollection, and not from a memoranda.
    Appeal from 'Jefferson Criminal Court.
    Heard before Hon. William E. Fort.
    Love Harris was convicted of burglary, and he appeals.
    Affirmed.
    Omitting the formal charging part, the indictment is as follows:
    Love Harris, with intent to steal, broke into and entered the warehouse or other building, to wit, the magazine, of Lovick L. Stephenson, in which goods, merchandise, or dynamite, things of value, w;ere kept for use, sale, or deposit, and, having so broken and entered, feloniously took and carried away therefrom nine cases of dynamite, the personal property of Lovick L. Stephenson, of the value of $6.50 per case.
    Morrison testified that he was the superintendent for Stephenson and had the key to the magazine where the dynamite was stored, and that he kept it under lock and key and permitted no one to enter without his knowledge; that on the afternoon of December 30, 1912, he locked the door to the magazine; that the same was securely fastened, and no one could enter without breaking in; and that on the morning of December 31st the lock was broken, the door was open, and nine cases of dynamite was gone; that about December 1st, shortly after they had had a fire at the plant, he took an inventory of the contents of the magazine by actual personal count, and listed the number on a paper or inventory ; that the magazine was a small one; that they did not sell dynamite, but only used it from time to time as was necessary; and that he knew of his own knowledge that no dynamite had been taken from the magazine from the time he made the inventory until the morning that the magazine was found broken open.
    The evidence for the state tended to show that on the night of the breaking defendant came from the direction of the magazine driving a one-horse wagon with the nine cases of dynamite in it, and that when he was called on to stop he jumped out of the wagon over the horse and ran in the direction of Birmingham, but was pursued and overtaken and put in jail.
    McQueen & Ellis, for appellant. No brief reached the Reporter.
    R. 0. Brickell, Attorney General, and W. L. Martin, Assistant Attorney General, for the State
    The indictment was in Code form and therefore sufficient.— Secs. 6415 and 7161, Code 1907. (Form 27.) The evidence was sufficient to carry the question of guilt to the jury.
   PELHAM, P. J.

The indictment charges burglary in the form prescribed in the Code and is sufficient. The place burglarized is described as a building in which goods or merchandise of value, to wit, dynamite, a-thing of value, were kept for use, sale, or deposit; and the dynamite, the thing alleged to have been stolen, being sufficiently described and its value alleged, the indictment was not bad for the reasons pointed out in the demurrer interposed to it.

The witness Morrison clearly showed that he was testifying from his own independent recollection as to the number of cases of dynamite missing from the magazine building on the morning of December 31, 1912 (the next morning after the burglary of the night before), and the court properly overruled the defendant’s motion to exclude this testimony from the jury.

The evidence was ample to show a commission of the offense charged, and the defendant’s guilty participation, and the court properly overruled the defendant’s motion to exclude the evidence and withdraw the case from the jury. It follows that there was no error in refusing the general charge requested in behalf of the defendant.

Affirmed.