Court Opinion

ID: 9825378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:48:41.752644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:45.584410
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.'
Form 90 (Code 1923, § 4556) for indictments contains every charge and allegation to sustain a conviction under section 4912 of the Code of 1923, for buying, receiving, concealing, etc., stolen property. Lindsey v. State, 221 Ala. 175, 128 So. 210. The Lindsey Case, supra, was on certiorari of the case of Lindsey v. State, 23 Ala. App. 411, 128 So. 209, and simply upheld the decision of this court that the indictment was broad enough to cover the charge in the statute. In the Lindsey Case, 23 Ala. App. 411, 128 So. 209, 210, supra, this court held, as it does now, that a conviction cannot be had unless the jury believe beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time of the purchase defendant knew the goods had been stolen, but held the charges requested to have been misleading because not recognizing the amendment to the statute authorizing a conviction if defendant had reasonable grounds for believing the goods to have been stolen. In the Lindsey Case, supra, this court said: “ ‘Knowing that it has been stolen’ and ‘having reasonable grounds for believing that it has been stolen’ are synonymous; or perhaps it would be more correct to say that one phrase qualifies the other in such sense that they mean the same thing.” The above-quoted expression is not a correct statement and not in accord with the decision in that case and other decisions of this court and the Supreme Court. All *389of the decisions are to the effect that the defendant at the time of buying, receiving, etc., must know the goods to have been stolen. But a conviction in almost every case resting in inference, a conviction is authorized and will be sustained, if the defendant had reasonable grounds for believing that the goods had been stolen. However strong the evidence tending to show that defendant had; reasonable grounds for believing- the goods to have been stolen, if as a matter of fact they had not been stolen, there could be no conviction.
The opinion is extended and the application is overruled.