Knight v. State
Knight v. State
Opinion of the Court
Conviction for theft of chickens; punishment, two years in the penitentiary.
Some sixteen or eighteen chickens of Mr. Haddox were stolen from his chicken house in Jones county, Texas, on the night of April 29, 1930. Tracks of two men and a car were observed not far from the chicken house. As far as this record shows the owner of said chickens never saw same again, except the body of a rooster which was found dead the next morning not far from the chicken house, his neck having been broken.
The state’s attorney with this court has confessed the lack of evidence to corroborate the accomplice Thompson. We think his conclusion sound. The law requires that evidence independent of that of the accomplice, be produced, which points to and indicates the accused as one who participated in the commission of the offense charged. Car tracks not shown to have been made by a Star coupe, and men’s tracks not shown to be those of appellant, near a chicken house from which chickens disappeared, supports the theory of chicken theft, but do not in the least individuate the thief. The sale of chickens in Colorado by appellant and Thompson, seventy-five miles distant from the home of Mr. Haddox, points to no one as having stolen Haddox’s chickens, unless the owner can identify his chickens as among those so sold.
The law is written by the legislature. We are charged with the duty of applying same to a given state of facts, and are compelled to hold there is no corroboration of the accomplice which of itself would tend to point to appellant as the taker of the chickens in question. There is a suggestion that in some way the finding of the rooster with the broken neck tends to show that appellant was a participant in the crime. We are wholly unable to comprehend just how this is so. The state may be able to find other testimony to strengthen its case, but on the record before us the judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.