Harrall v. State
Harrall v. State
Opinion of the Court
In this case the defendant proved that, when found in possession of the stolen animal, he stated he had purchased it from a Mexican. One of. the errors assigned is that the court refused to give, in charge to the jury, a special instruction asked by his - counsel, in the following words : “ The presumption is in favor of the innocence of the accused; and a reasonable account of how he came in possession of the animal must be disproved by the State before they (the jury) can find the defendant guilty.”
In the general charge as given, the judge had already instructed the jury as to the reasonable doubt, and, further, charged them that “if the jury believe from the evidence that the defendant, Wade Harrall, did trade for the animal, described in the indictment, from a Mexican, the}7 should acquit him.” This charge was certainly as favorable to the defendant as the special instruction, and presented the same idea in a much more terse and pointed manner; for, under it, the jury could not have found the defendant guilty if they had believed that he had bought the animal of the Mexican, and it also follows that they must have believed that such account of his possession was not true ; else they could not have found him guilty.
A bill of exceptions was saved to the ruling of the court
We see no error in the record for which the judgment should be reversed, and it is, therefore, affirmed.
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.