Ware v. State
Ware v. State
Opinion of the Court
The accused was convicted of simple larceny. The evidence, together with the legal inferences arising therefrom, authorized a finding that the accused was a negro undertaker, and that he was a dealer in second-hand coffins (coffins in which persons had been buried); that in the instant case he gave $10 to two grave-diggers in a negro cemetery to dig .out a grave in which a woman had been recently buried and to take therefrom the coffin or casket, the dead body being left in the grave; that the coffin, after it was removed from the grave, was carried from the cemetery by the accused, with the intent of selling it to some other person in the course of his business as an undertaker; that the coffin was the property of one Clement Perry, who furnished it and buried the deceased, and who was a living person and the husband of the deceased; that the coffin when placed in the grave had a value of $125, and that it was worth at least $10 when stolen by the accused.
Conceding (but not deciding) that the coffin, after it was placed in the grave and the grave refilled, became a part of the soil, the coffin, when removed from the grave, was detached from the realty and immediately became personalty, and could be the subject-matter of larceny. See, in this connection, Penal Code of 1910, § 167; Beall v. State, 68 Ga. 820 (2); Kennedy v. Smith, 23 Ga. App. 724 (1) (99 S. E. 318).
Under the common law it is a larceny to steal a coffin in which the remains of a human being are interred, and that rule is not changed by any statute of this State. In such a case the coffin is the property of the person who furnished it and had the deceased interred, and he does not abandon the property or part with the title to it when he has the remains interred. State v. Doepke, 68 Mo. 208.
Under the facts of the case there is no substantial merit in the contention of counsel for the accused that there is a material difference in the meaning of the words “casket” and “coffin,” and,
The motion for a new trial contained only the usual general grounds; the verdict was authorized by the evidence, and the court did not err in refusing the grant of a new trial.
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.