Court Opinion

ID: 9655292
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:05:03.789424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:17.316619
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge
(dissenting).
Here, again, is an inference being used upon an inference to make a case of circumstantial evidence against the appellant. My view;s thereon are expressed in Bell v. State, No. 30,308, (page 460, this volume), 321 S.W. 2d 302.
The first inference is that the light-colored Chevrolet appellant was seen driving in the summer of 1957 was the ivory-colored car that had been stolen.
The next inference is that if the light-colored car appellant was seen driving was not the stolen car, then the light gray Chevrolet the service station operator saw him driving in the summer of 1957 was the stolen automobile.
For appellant to be in the recent possession of the stolen automobile, which my brethren fix at two months after the theft, one or both of the cars described — that is, the light-colored car seen by the sheriff and the light gray car seen by the service station operator — had to be the stolen automobile.
Neither of the witnesses was able to give the body type of the car appellant Was seen driving in the summer of 1957.
*638The stolen.car was a sport coupe.
So then appellant’s guilt is made to depend upon the inference drawn that the Chevrolet automobile he was seen driving in the summer of 1957 was the Chevrolet that was stolen two months prior in a county half way across the state from where he lived — that is, from Collin County to San Augustine County.
This testimony did not show that appellant had been in possession of the stolen property, or within two months after it was stolen, therefore the state’s case fails.
My brethren admit that their finding of the sufficiency of the conviction is predicated upon the proof showing that the Chevrolet automobile appellant was seen driving in the summer of 1957 was the stolen automobile.
To my mind, such conclusion is nothing short of pure guess work and is the rankest sort of supposition.
If appellant was ever found in possession of the stolen automobile it was nine months after the theft, and for one to identify it as the stolen automobile it was necessary to resort to and decode a confidential number on the body of the automobile which served to identify it only to those who knew where to find as well as read the confidential number.
If it was the stolen automobile or only the body thereof which was in appellant’s possession and identified by the confidential number, no one purported to know.
There is more evidence that appellant acquired the automobile after the theft than there is that he stole it, in which event he could not be convicted of the theft of the automobile.
I have always thought that recent possession of stolen property presents a case of circumstantial evidence only. If the correctness of that proposition has ever been seriously challenged by any court, I have never heard of it.
Notwithstanding such law and the facts here, a charge on the law of circumstantial evidence was not given.
My brethren dispose of the failure to charge on circumstantial evidence by saying that there was no objection made by the *639appellant to the charge and that the question is therefore not presented.
So far as I am concerned, the trial court should have so charged the jury, in obedience to the demand of the law to give in charge to the jury the law governing the case.
Failure on the part of counsel for the appellant to call such error to the trial court’s attention may be attributed either to a lack of ability or to negligence. I care not which term is employed, the result is the same to this appellant.
It will be remembered that, among other grounds for a reversal, appellant insists that his court-appointed counsel was incompetent.
The facts are not sufficient to support the conviction, and the case should be reversed for that reason.