FOREST GANT
v.
STATE
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Forest Gant was convicted of cattle stealing after officers discovered buried hides of stolen animals on his premises following a voluntary search he invited. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that the evidence was sufficient to support the guilty verdict and that the trial court properly admitted evidence of the discovered hides.
The evidence was sufficient to support the verdict of guilty, being more convincing than evidence held inadequate in prior cases. The trial court properly admitted testimony regarding the buried hides because there was a legal predicate for admission: the search resulted from the defendant's own voluntary and express invitation to officers to search his premises.
“the hide of a butchered animal answering the description of the one charged as having been stolen, and identified as such, was found buried, together with hides of other animals apparently also stolen. This circumstance, considered in connection with other testimony of a direct and positive character, clearly pointing to the defendant's guilt, is sufficient to sustain the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict”
Establishes that the circumstantial evidence of buried hides combined with direct testimony was sufficient to support conviction
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceForest Gant was tried and convicted by jury of larceny of a brown bull yearling belonging to Ransom Ard. Officers searching Gant's premises found the …
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— Plaintiff in error, Forest Gant, was tried by jury, found guilty, and sentenced to three years in the State prison for cattle stealing. The first count of the information on which Gant was convicted charged the larceny of a brown bull yearling, the property of Ransom Ard.
On a search by officers of defendant’s premises, the hide of a butchered animal answering the description of the one charged as having been stolen, and identified as such, was found buried, together with hides of other animals appar*24ently also stolen. This circumstance, considered in connection with other testimony of a direct and positive character, clearly pointing to the defendant’s guilt, is sufficient to sustain the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict, which is of a more convincing character than that held inadequate in Haag v. State, 111 Fla. 781, 149 Sou. Rep. 566, and cases cited.
Nor did the trial court err in allowing in evidence testimony of the officers regarding the secreted cowhides found buried in Forest Gant’s premises. There was a legal predicate therefor offered, and apparently found to be the truth of the circumstance by the trial judge, to the effect that the finding of the buried hides was the result of a voluntary and express' challenge by the defendant inviting the officers to search his premises in order to confirm his protestations that he had nothing on them of a suspicious nature, tending to show him to be a cattle thief. Carlton v. State, 111 Fla. 777, 149 Sou. Rep. 767.
It follows that there being no error, the judgment is to be affirmed.
Affirmed.
Ellis and Terrell, J. J., concur.
Whitfield, P. J., and Brown and Buford, J. J., concur in the opinion and judgment.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Longo v. State, 157 Fla. 668 (Fla. 1946)…ly believed by the trial judge, he freely gave, his consent to a search of the car which he was operating and voluntarily turned over his keys to the arresting officer for that purpose. See Carlton v. State, 111 Fla. 777, 149 So. 767; Gant v. State, 114 Fla. 23, 152 So. 710; Powell v. State, 131 Fla. 254, 175 So. 213; Tomlinson v. State, 129 Fla. 658, 176 So. 543. But even had consent to a search not been given, we think that the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the arresting officers at th…
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James v. State, 80 So. 2d 699 (Fla. 1955)…tly believed by the trial judge, he freely gave his consent to a search of the car which he was operating and voluntarily turned over his keys to the arresting officer for that purpose. See Carlton v. State, 111 Fla. 777, 149 So. 767; Gant v. State, 114 Fla. 23, 152 So. 710; Powell v. State, 131 Fla. 254, 175 So. 213; Tomlinson v. State, 129 Fla. 658, 176 So. 543.” From this it follows that a search by consent under the circumstances is not an “unreasonable search.” In the Longo case the testimony showed…
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Harvey v. State, 129 Fla. 289 (Fla. 1937)…meets the rule in such cases and was sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis, except that of defendant’s guilt. No good purpose can be served by delineating the testimony in this opinion. See Driggers v. State, 96 Fla. 232; Gant v. State, 114 Fla. 23, 152 Sou. 710. The third question challenges the action of the court in admitting in evidence the testimony of certain witnesses as expert cattlemen and butchers. Each of the witnesses referred to showed himself to be an expert by many years of exp…
Authorities Cited
- Carlton v. State, 111 Fla. 777 (Fla. 1933)
- Haag v. State, 111 Fla. 781 (Fla. 1933)