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71 Ala. 14

Croom v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided December 15, 1881

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1881-12-15

Tried before lion. William E. ClabKe. The judgment in reference to the costs in this case is in these words: “ It is also ordered that the prisoner be and he is hereby sentenced to additional hard labor for Marengo county for one hundred and sixty-nine days, the time required by law to work out the costs of this prosecution at forty cents per day.” The record fails to show the items of costs. The other facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The least removal of the hog by the defendant after he shot and killed it would be an asportavit in law, and if the jury believed from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant shot and killed the hog and then took hold of it and cut its throat, that would constitute a taking and carrying away in the eyes of the law,”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 15 Ala. App. 146 - Thomas v. State

Relies on Bradley v. State · Edmonds v. State · Coleman v. State

Cited in Anderson (1889)’s definition of “Assault”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1881-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently January 1953

15 state decisions

3018811890190019101920193019401950decided

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 →

SOMERVILLE, J.

¶1The defendant is indicted for the larceny of a hog. The only evidence of an asportation is that tending to prove that he shot the animal and cut its throat, these injuries resulting in death. The court charged the jury, that “tlie least removal of the hog by the defendant, after he shot and killed it, would be an asportavit in law; and if the jury believe from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant shot and killed the hog, and then took hold of it and cut its throat, that would constitute a taking and carrying away in the eyes of the law.”

¶2This charge we think was correct, on the authority of Edmonds v. The State, 70 Ala. 8. “The controlling *15principle in such cases,” we there said, “would seem to be, that the possession of the owner must be so far changed as that the dominion of the trespasser shall he complete. Ilis proximity to the intended booty must be such as to enable him to assert his dominion by taking actual control or custody by manucaption, if he so wills. If he abandons the enterprise, however, before being placed in this attitude, he is not guilty of the offense of larceny, though he may be convicted of an attempt to commit it.” The defendant very obviously may have been found guilty under the proper application of this principle.

¶3The judgment of the court specified the exact duration of the additional hard labor imposed for costs, and this was sufficient.—Coleman v. The State, 55 Ala. 173. The record does not show that the bill of costs includes any for the payment of which the defendant can not be legally imprisoned within the principle settled by Bradley's case, 69 Ala. 318.

¶4Affirmed.

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