¶1 (dissenting). The rulings complained of in bills Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 appear to me to be contrary to the doctrine announced in State v. Rock, 162 La. 299,110 So. 482. The Act 167 of 1916, p. 379, after declaring that a person charged with crime shall, at his own request but not otherwise, be deemed a competent witness, declares: “And his neglect or refusal to testify shall not create any presumption against him.” Therefore, to say that a person charged with larceny, and proven to have had possession of the stolen property, bears the burden of proving that he got possession of the property honestly, is the same as to say—in a case where the person so charged did not see fit to testify—that his neglect or refusal to testify shall create a presumption against him. That is the substance of what we decided in State v. Rock. Therefore I respectfully dissent from the decision in this case.
167 La. 1050
120 So 853
State v. Stickney
Decided February 11, 1929
Supreme Court of Louisiana · decided 1929-02-11
Relies on State v. Rock
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1929-02-11
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently March 1984
18 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
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