Hughes v. State

Decided October 15, 1896

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1896-10-15

From the circuit court of DeSoto county. The appellant was prosecuted for stealing seed cotton of the value of $20. The affidavit alleged that it was stolen from the premises of J. D. Nichols, the affiant, but did not allege that it was the property of Nichols, or any other person than the accused. The evidence showed that the cotton was stored in a cotton house on the plantation of Nichols.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1896-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently January 1971

7 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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Woods, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The motion in arrest of judgment should have been sustained. The cotton charged in the affidavit to have been stolen was not laid as the property of affiant or as in his possession, when alleged to have been stolen and carried away. It is matter of common knowledge that, on almost every plantation, others beside the owner of the plantation itself — the premises — -both own, and are in possession of, their own personal property. The defect is one of substance and not form, and may be taken advantage of by motion in arrest, as well as by demurrer before trial.

¶3Reversed and remanded.