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391 F.2d 592

Docket No. 24737.

Sutton v. United States

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided March 22, 1968.

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1968-03-22

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The trial judge must be given considerable latitude in allowing evidence to show the element of intent. Holt v. United States, 5 Cir., 1965, 342 F.2d 163 , 166; Roe v. United States, 5 Cir., 1963, 316 F.2d 617 , 621; Weiss v. United States, 5 Cir. 1941, 122 F.2d 675 , 682. Furthermore, the court properly charged the jury concerning the limited use they should make of the evidence. Condrey v. United States, 5 Cir. 1965, 351 F.2d 456 ; Ah-rens v. United States, 5 Cir. 1959, 265 F.2d 514 .””

quoted by 1 later decision, including United States v. Jones

Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2115

Relies on Glasser v. United States · Weiss v. United States · Roe v. United States

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1968-03-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently June 1987

17 federal appellate ·

90196819701980decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Denmark Groover, Jr., Bloch, Hall, Groover & Hawkins, Wilbur D. Owens, Jr., Macon, Ga., for appellant.

¶2Sampson M. Culpepper, Asst. U. S. Atty., Tyrus R. Atkinson, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Floyd M. Buford, U. S. Atty., Macon, Ga., for appellee.

¶3Before WISDOM, BELL and DYER, Circuit Judges.

¶4PER CURIAM:

¶5This is an appeal from a jury verdict finding appellant guilty of forcibly breaking into a “building used in whole or in part as a post office, with the intent to commit in such part thereof any larceny or other depredation in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 2115.

¶6The appellant concedes that the evidence is sufficient to support a finding by the jury connecting him with the breaking and entering and larceny from a building which was in part used as a post office. Appellant urges, however, that there is insufficient evidence of one of the essential elements of the crime, *593i. e., that there was an intent to break and enter for the purpose of burglarizing that part of the building used as a post office. Appellant also complains that it was error to admit evidence of other safe cracking jobs in which he was involved. We disagree on both points and affirm.

¶7The post office in question is located inside a general store in a small town called Stevens Pottery, Georgia. A “U.S. Post Office” sign appears on the front window and a flag is displayed. There is a safe in a back room and another safe adjacent to a desk upon which there is grillwork and a sign “U.S. Post Office.” On this desk rested the post office pigeon holes for letters. The desk was used in issuing money orders and putting up the mail.

¶8In the early morning hours of October 3, 1965, the appellant and his cohorts blew the door off the safe adjacent to the post office desk with dynamite and stole eighteen books of stamps, cash, blank money orders and personal funds.

¶9We are fully convinced that the evidence, when considered in the light most favorable to the government, Glasser v. United States, 1942, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680, proved beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time of the breaking and entering the appellant had the specific intent to steal property from that part of the building which was used as a post office.1

¶10 Over objection of counsel for appellant the District Court permitted evidence to be introduced of other safe cracking jobs by appellant and his accomplices in geographical proximity to the Stevens Pottery Post Office on the same night and within a day or two of the burglary in question. These, offenses were of like nature and not too remote in time. The trial judge must be given considerable latitude in allowing evidence to show the element of intent. Holt v. United States, 5 Cir. 1965, 342 F.2d 163, 166; Roe v. United States, 5 Cir. 1963, 316 F.2d 617, 621; Weiss v. United States, 5 Cir. 1941, 122 F.2d 675, 682. Furthermore, the court properly charged the jury concerning the limited use they should make of the evidence. Condrey v. United States, 5 Cir. 1965, 351 F.2d 456; Ahrens v. United States, 5 Cir. 1959, 265 F.2d 514.

¶11Affirmed.

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