State v. Levers

Citations

• 12 S.D. 265
• 81 N.W. 294
• 1899 S.D. LEXIS 117

Syllabus

<p>S., a participant in a burglary, testified that defendant, just before the commission of the crime, suggested that S. procure a team, and drive to some neighboring town, and get a piece of money; that he and one K. then left defendant’s saloon, and drove a team procured from a livery to a neighboring town, and committed the burglary. A part of the stolen goods were thereafter found in defendants’s barn, which could have been entered by any one. When an officer told defendant the circustanc.es of the crime, and that a part of the goods had been found in his barn, he replied that he was sorry for K., but that S. was a thief anyway. Before K. and S. started for the place where the burglary , was committed, defendant, believing that they were going to a house of prostitution, told S. that he had better pay the liveryman before 'he spent all his money. Held, that it was error for the court to refuse to direct a verdict in favor of defendant, charged with the burglary, since the evidence to corroborate the accomplice’s testimony did not tend to connect defendant with the crime, as required by Comp. Laws, § 7384.</p>