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78 Tenn. 498

Parham v. State

Tennessee Supreme Court

Decided December 15, 1882

Tennessee Supreme Court · decided 1882-12-15

<p>1. ObimiNAIz Law. Indictment. Vtrdict. On the trial of the defendant under an indictment containing two counts, both good, one for larceny and the other for receiving stolen goods, there was evidence to sustain the first count hut no evidence to sustain the second count, and the charge of the judge was correct on the former but erroneous on the latter count. Held, that a general verdict was properly applied to the first count, and a judgment thereon valid.</p> <p>'2. Same. Uvidence. Witness who aided the defendant without knowledge of crime. The rule in relation to the unsupported testimony of an accomplice does not apply to the evidence of a -witness, who, although present at the commission of the offense, and aiding in it under the employment of the defendant, had no suspicion of the true nature of the transaction.</p> <p>3. Same. Appointment of Attorney-General ex officio prosecutor. The presumption is in favor of the regularity of the proceedings of a court of general jurisdiction; and, therefore, where the minutes of the court show the return of the grand jury into court* with an indictment and an order of court directing the attorney-general to prosecute ex officio, and a subsequent return of the grand jury with the indictment properly endorsed, it will he presumed that the jury considered of the indictment after the order.</p> <p>4. Same. New trial. Affidavits Affidavits are not sufficient to obtain a new trial, which state no material fact which might not have been had at the former trial, or state facts only going to the credit of witnesses examined, or throwing doubt upon the correctness of their recollection as to an incidental circumstance.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1882-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently September 1998

10 state decisions

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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 →

¶1Upon petition to rehear,

Cooper, J.,

¶2said:

¶3The main ground assumed on behalf of the prisoner in support' of his application for a rehearing is that there was evidence on which the verdict could have been found under the second count of the indictment, which charged him with receiving stolen goods. But the testimony of the principal witness for the State showed an actual felonious taking and carrying away of the property from the custody of the owner by the prisoner, and the other witnesses only established the fact that the property was found in the possession of. the defendant. To make out the offense of receiving stolen goods, there must be proof of a felonious taking. The evidence of the State tended to show no felonious taking except by the defendant himself, and there was literally no testimony on its behalf for any other pur*507pose, or in the least looking to any other offense.. And the learned • counsel of the prisoner can scarcely expect the court to consider the testimony introduced on his behalf to prove that he was guilty of no offense, as evidence tending to show that he was guilty under the second count. The punishment of both offenses is precisely the same, and certainly no proof was offered by them to establish either.

¶4No new authority is cited, or new argument submitted upon the question decided in the former opinion, that the general verdict would be applied to the ■ count, which the evidence tended alone to sustain. Nor has our attention been directed to any fact in the - record tending to show that the principal witness was. an’accomplice' in the commission of the offense. The affidavit of Brown was fully considered before the-opinion was delivered.

¶5The rehearing asked for must be disallowed.

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