Court Opinion

ID: 9577323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:33:51.553108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:20.507183
License: Public Domain

Buchanan, J.,
dissenting.
In holding that Instruction C-2 had no place in this case the court has, in my opinion, limited and weakened a longstanding rule of evidence that has been found useful and fair in larceny cases. I do not believe it is wise to do that and, therefore, cannot agree with the holding.
The rule stated in the instruction was first announced more than 75 years ago in Price v. Commonweath, 21 Gratt. (62 Va.) 846. Judge Moncure, then President of this court, after reviewing the English cases and the recognized authorities on evidence, there formulated it thus:
“If property be stolen, and recently thereafter be found in the exclusive possession of the prisoner, then such possession of itself affords sufficient grounds for a presumption of fact that he was the thief; and, in order to repel the presumption, makes it incumbent on him, on being called on for the purpose, .to account for such possession consistently with his innocence. If.he give a reasonable account of it, then it devolves on the Commonwealth to prove that such account is untrue. . If he give an unreasonable account of it, then it devolves on the prisoner to sustain such account by other evidence.” 21 Gratt. (62 Va.), at p. 869.
, It will be seen that the first paragraph of Instruction C-2 is identical with the quoted language. An instruction in the same language was approved in Stapleton v. Commonwealth, 140 Va. 475, 482, 125 S. E. 237, 239, and again in Gilland v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 223, 233, 35 S. E. (2d) 130, 134, *742both sustaining convictions of grand larceny; and one to similar effect in Stallard v. Commonwealth, 130 Va. 769, 775, 107 S. E. 722, 724, sustaining a conviction of petit larceny.
It is interesting to note that in the Price Case the defense was similar to the defense here, i. e., the defendant “claimed title to the horse, and said he had a bill of sale for it.”
It is not questioned, of course, that for the rule to apply the Commonwealth must first prove that the goods have been stolen. Instruction C-2 is predicated on proof of that fact and in its first sentence states that “if property be stolen,” the recent possession thereof by the prisoner results in a rebuttable presumption of fact. Instruction C-2 told the jury what was required to prove larceny and D-l told them of the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof.
The Commonwealth’s evidence was that the cable had been stolen and its sufficiency is not questioned. It was to the effect that the cable was taken without permission, not from the dump pile, but from the rack on which it had been stored in the cable storage area, some 75 feet from /the edge of the dump, and that the four coils had been tagged that same afternoon as late as three-thirty to four-thirty o’clock.
The application of the rule has not been made to depend on the nature of the defense. It applies in all larceny cases upon proof that goods have been stolen and found in the recent exclusive possession of the defendant or defendants. The rule then shifts the burden to the defendant to explain how he acquired possession. If his explanation is reasonable, that is, one that the jury can believe, the burden goes back to the Commonwealth to prove it is not true; if unreasonable, that is, one that the jury would not accept, supporting evidence is required to overcome the prima facie case.
The Commonwealth having shown that the cable had been stolen and found very soon in the possession of these defend*743ants, the rule then relieved the Commonwealth of the burden of showing how they acquired possession. That burden shifted to the defendants. They thereupon offered evidence that they took it with the implied permission of the owner. The jury did not believe this explanation and their conviction followed.
I can see no reason for refusing to apply the rule to the facts of this case: It is an ordinary charge of larceny and a not unusual type of defense. The defense was that the defendants did not steal the goods which were found in their possession and which, according to the Commonwealth’s evidence, had been stolen. Instruction C-2 simply told the jury, as juries have long been told, on authority of the Price Case and the many following it, that in such circumstances they must give a reasonable explanation of their possession or be convicted.
Defendants’ counsel does not contend in his brief that the instruction was inapplicable. His argument is that the “vice of this instruction” is that while the presumption arising from possession is termed a presumption of fact, the language of the instruction converts it into a presumption of law.
Hudgins, C. J., concurs in this dissent.