Court Opinion

ID: 9679570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:56:36.657842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:15.567878
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
PRICE, Presiding Judge.
After further consideration, the court is of opinion reversible error was committed in overruling the objection to the question propounded by the state to the defendant concerning other cows found in his possession.
On a trial for larceny, the corpus delicti having been established, unexplained possession by accused of the recently stolen property is a fact from which the jury may infer guilt and the burden of explaining possession is on the accused. Heath v. State, 30 Ala.App. 416, 7 So.2d 579.
In Harris v. State, 41 Ala.App. 261, 130 So.2d 227, Judge Harwood, the then Presiding Judge of the Court of Appeals, said:
“ * * * (W) e are clear to the conclusion that the doctrines of our cases dealing with receiving stolen goods prohibit evidence of other like offenses unless a defendant obtains the stolen goods from the same thief.”
See also Sledge v. State, 40 Ala.App. 671, 122 So.2d 165.
On this question the state investigator testified defendant said he had turned over to him (the investigator) other cattle but he was not going to give him this one. “ * * * Well, he was referring to this cow and two other Pearson cows that had disappeared at another time and some cattle that had disappeared in Montgomery County.”
Defendant’s statement that he had released other cattle to the officers on the claim that they were stolen and the investigator’s testimony that other cattle had disappeared did not constitute proof that they were actually stolen cattle, or that they were obtained from the same thief from whom defendant obtained the cow laid in the indictment.
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.