Court Opinion

ID: 9587928
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:28:06.940694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:36.047019
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
concurring specially.
For the following reasons I am inclined to join Judge Pannell in his special concurrence:
Anciently at common law the receiver of stolen goods was held to be guilty of misprision of the felony, but under Statute of 3 William & Mary, c. 9, § 4 he was made an accessory after the fact. The statute was amended by 1 Anne, Stat. 2, c. 9, § 2 and by 5 Anne, c. 31, §§ 5, 6, to provide that if the principal thief could not be taken, the receiver might be separately prosecuted. Later the law was made to provide that the crown might proceed against the receiver without reference to the principal thief. Rex v. Solomons, 1 Moody 292; Rex v. Pulham, 9 Car. & P. 280. See 1 Bishop, Criminal Law, 424, § 699.
It will thus be seen that our Anglo-Saxon philosophy about the matter is that the receiver shares guilt in the theft itself. His offense was separated because of the difficulties of prosecution of an accessory after the fact when the principal could not be taken or prosecuted.
Under the new Criminal Code, § 26-1806, the crime is “Theft by receiving stolen property,” and a conviction is authorized when he receives property “which he knows or should know was stolen.”
This may be demonstrated by circumstantial evidence—-for it is rare indeed that the State could ever prove by direct evidence knowledge that the goods were stolen. The rule as to this is clearly and well stated in Cobb v. State, 76 Ga. 664 (2) and in Birdsong v. State, 120 Ga. 850 (3) (48 SE 329).
When the State has proven that the goods were stolen, I cannot see why the unexplained possession of them by one charged with receiving stolen goods—recently after the theft itself—is not strong circumstantial evidence from which the jury may infer knowledge of the character of the goods on the defendant’s part, and thus authorize a conviction.
*599I agree that the charge as given is incorrect.
I agree that there is confusion in the rule as stated in the two lines of cases—confusion which we should clear up for the benefit of the bench and bar. In so doing we should cite all cases that are to be discredited. We owe that to the bench and bar.