People v. Bolanger

The Court. The defendant, jointly indicted with William Bacon and Fielding Bacon for the larceny of certain hogs, was tried separately. He has appealed from a judgment of conviction, and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

1. Appellant excepted to a ruling of the Superior Court overruling his objection to a question asked by the district attorney of the witness F. M. Bell. The question was: “You and other-parties living in that vicinity have been troubled a good deal by parties stealing your hogs, have you not?” The answer of the "witness, with other testimony given by him, tended to explain why he had feigned complicity in the offense as asserted by him, and taken part in the acts constituting the alleged larceny for which defendant was indicted. We think it could not have prejudiced the defendant as tending to prove him guilty of larcenies other than that with which he was charged. No particular act of larceny was referred to in the question, and general evidence that other similar offenses had been committed in the neighborhood could not have been regarded by the jury as tending to prove the defendant guilty of the particular crime described in the indictment.

2. Appellant complains of the ruling of the court below, sustaining ¡the prosecution’s objection to the question asked by defendant of the witness Morgan Crawford: “You did not steal the hogs of Coughran that were driven out of the mountains to the Bacon barn, did you?”

[19]The witness had stated that he did not intend to commit larceny, but had feigned complicitly for the purpose of detecting the thieves. He' distinctly stated what he did and said in connection with the transaction. From the facts proved, it was for the jury to determine whether he was or was not particeps criminis.

3. It is contended the court below erred in sustaining an objection to the question asked by defendant of the witness Brown. The question was as follows: “Do you know of any agreement entered into between Bell [the witness F. M. Bell hereinbefore mentioned] and any other parties that are alleged in this indictment to be owners of the hogs charged to have been stolen, by which it was agreed that they might bring down the hogs, and if they brought any belonging to the parties, the meat should be preserved,—not allowed to spoil?”

The witness was one of the alleged owners. He had already testified: “There was no understanding between Bell apd Crawford and myself that if any of my hogs were driven down, they were to cure the meat, and not let it spoil. Of my own knowledge, I don’t know that there was any such agreement with the other owners of the hogs.” The ruling of the court could not have injured the defendant. But the question was irrelevant and immaterial. The question called for no statement as to any such agreement by the defendant, and if he appropriated the property causa lucri, such an agreement by Bell did not relieve the defendant of his criminal intent.