Title: Bass v. State
Citation: 328 So. 2d 665
Docket Number: 48841
State: Mississippi
Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court
Date: March 16, 1976

328 So. 2d 665 (1976) Tommy Ray BASS v. STATE of Mississippi. No. 48841. Supreme Court of Mississippi. March 16, 1976. Dale &amp; Upton, Columbia, for appellant. A.F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Billy L. Gore, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee. Before PATTERSON, P.J., and ROBERTSON and SUGG, JJ. ROBERTSON, Justice: Tommy Ray Bass was indicted, tried and convicted in the Circuit Court of Lawrence County of embezzlement of 7.84 cords of pine pulpwood of the value of $234.50, the property of Monticello Forest Products Corporation. He was sentenced to serve a term of five years in the state penitentiary, but because this was his first felony offense the court suspended the execution of the sentence for a period of five years and placed Bass on probation under the supervision of the State Probation and Parole Board. As the eleventh condition of suspension, the court provided: *666 Defendant appeals. On June 27, 1974, Bass was completing his work as the logging contractor employed by Monticello Forest Products Corporation to cut and haul the timber from the Evans tract in Lawrence County to the Georgia-Pacific mill either at Taylorsville, or Goss in Marion County. When Earl Smith and Leroy Summers of Monticello Forest Products corporation checked with Bass at the Evans property, Bass told them that he was loading his second load of pine logs. Smith testified that about a week later he called Bass because Georgia-Pacific had only returned one delivery ticket for June 27th. Bass promised to look up the ticket and get it to Smith. Not having done this, Smith called Bass back. Smith testified: Bass never did settle up. Bass assigns as error: The ground for the motion to quash was that the circuit court of Lawrence County did not have venue because the offense was not committed until the load of logs was delivered to Columbia Pulp and Paper in Marion County. Mississippi Code Annotated section 99-11-19 (1972) provides: Clarence Barnes, the driver of Bass's only truck testified that on June 27, 1974, when the truck was being loaded at the Evans tract in Lawrence County that Bass himself instructed Barnes to deliver that load to Columbia Pulp and Paper Company. The offense thus was partly committed in Lawrence County and fits squarely within the statute, prosecution having been first begun in Lawrence County. See State v. Hogarth, 317 So. 2d 384 (Miss. 1975); Rogers v. State, 266 So. 2d 10 (Miss. 1972); Aldridge v. State, 232 Miss. 368, 99 So. 2d 456 (1958); Murry v. State, 98 Miss. 594, 54 So. 72 (1910). The second assignment of error is that there was a fatal variance between the indictment and the proof because the indictment said 7.84 cords of pine pulpwood, and the proof was 7.84 cords of pine logs. The third assignment of error was that the State failed to prove that Monticello Forest Products Corporation was a corporation. Both of these points were raised for the first time on appeal. Not being jurisdictional, these alleged errors fail under the provision of Mississippi Code Annotated section 99-35-143 (1972): See Jones v. State, 279 So. 2d 594 (Miss. 1973); Ellis v. State, 254 So. 2d 902 (Miss. 1971); Pieratt v. State, 235 So. 2d 923 (Miss. 1970). The fourth error assigned was that the trial court erroneously admitted into evidence a photostatic copy of a check for $234.50 issued June 28, 1974, by Columbia Pulp and Paper Co. to Tommy R. Bass. When this exhibit was offered, the only objection made was that it was a copy and the original should be produced. The absence of the original was explained by Darrell Kelsoe, who signed the check for Columbia Pulp and Paper Company, and who identified the photostatic copy as an exact copy of the original, but not including the endorsements on the back of the check. Witness Kelsoe's explanation completely satisfied the trial judge. In addition, Mississippi Code Annotated section 13-1-151 (1972) specifically covers copies made by the photographic or photostatic process: The trial court did exceed its statutory authority when it attempted to add a $1,000 fine to the sentence. Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-23-25 (1972), provides: The two methods of punishment are alternative methods; the disjunctive conjunction "or" connects them. The trial court elected to sentence the defendant to imprisonment in the state penitentiary. Having chosen this method, the trial court, under the guise of a condition of the suspension, could not impose the additional sentence of paying a $1,000 fine. The conviction is, therefore, affirmed, and the sentence to serve a term of five years in the penitentiary (suspended for five years) is also affirmed, but the additional sentence to pay a $1,000 fine is reversed and the fine canceled. AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND RENDERED. GILLESPIE, C.J., PATTERSON and INZER, P. JJ., and SMITH, SUGG and WALKER, JJ, concur. BROOM, J., took no part.