Averett v. State

149 So. 2d 320, 246 Miss. 49
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 28, 1963
DocketNo. 42498
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 149 So. 2d 320 (Averett v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Averett v. State, 149 So. 2d 320, 246 Miss. 49 (Mich. 1963).

Opinion

Rodgers, J.

Appellants were convicted of the crime of grand larceny in the Circuit Court of Harrison County, Mississippi, and sentenced to serve a term of five years in the State Penitentiary. Prom this conviction and sentence, they have appealed to this Court.

The trial and conviction of appellants arose under the following facts and circumstances: Jasper Lanier Meeks advised a Special Agent for the Southern Bell Telephone Company in Florida, that he, in company with appellants, Leon Averitt and Percy Donald Livingston, was about to make a tour through the Southern part of the United States, into Texas, and finally into Colorado. The Special Agent knew the purpose of this trip. Pie had talked to Meeks on numerous occasions. He said [53]*53in answer to the question “Yon knew they were coming for that purpose didn’t you? A. When this group gets together that’s the only thing they travel for.” On the 19th day of January 1962, the day before the alleged larceny is said to have occurred, an agent of the Southern Bell Telephone Company was notified by a state officer who had been previously stationed at the Pa'scagoula toll gate bridge that the three men had crossed the bridge and were then in Biloxi. Agents of the Telephone Company, officers from the local police department and sheriff’s office were promptly alerted to the fact that appellants were in the area. Prior to the arrival of appellants, Agents for the Telephone Company had installed switches in several of the pay telephones located along Highway 90. These switches were arranged so that the removal of the cash box from a telephone turned on a light located on a light pole nearby. Marked coins were also placed in the cash boxes. Early in the morning of the 20th of January, agents and officers observed appellants as they entered two telephone booths at Billups Service Station on Highway 90. They also observed a third man going into one of the booths with one of the appellants, and immediately thereafter the signal light came on, signifying that the cash box in the booths had been removed. When appellants and Jasper Lanier Meeks left the booths and proceeded toward their automobile, they were arrested by a Deputy Sheriff of Harrison County. Jasper Lanier Meeks, sometimes called “Jack” Meeks, made his escape by running away. Appellants were promptly searched, and it was discovered that each had a large pocket sewn in his coat. The marked coins were discovered in their pockets. One of the prisoners, Percy Livingston, had twenty-five dollars and twenty-five cents in coins in the pocket of his coat. The sum of twenty-eight dollars and seventy-five cents in coins was taken from the person of Leon Averitt. Marked coins were also found on his person. [54]*54The seals taken from the cash boxes were also found on the persons of the prisoners, and they had what is described as * * an expert lock-picker’s pick”, a “hand chuck and a steel hit. This is to be used to open other types of receptacles.” The officers searched appellants’ automobile and found three canvas money bags, coin wrappers, a pair of cutting pliers, a box-end wrench, long instruments used as lock-picks, and fifty-five dollars in coins.

The morning* after appellants were apprehended, H. C. Stubbs, Larry A. Taylor and T. C. Josey, Agents of the Southern Bell Telephone Company, had breakfast with “Jack” Meeks at the Broadwater Beach Motel Restaurant. The evidence reveals that the above-named agents knew that Jack Meeks was expected to be with the persons apprehended, and that Mr. Josey believed that Meeks was the third man engaged in the larceny the night before -at the time he had breakfast with him.

When the indictment was returned charging appellants with grand larceny, they entered their individual pleas of “not guilty”, and filed a petition asking the trial judge to summon and transport a witness, Jasper Lanier Meeks, from Allegheny County Jail at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the Harrison County Courthouse, to act as a material witness in their behalf. The petition was filed under the procedure set out in Sec. 1892, Miss. Code 1942, Rec., known as the “Uniform Witness Attendance ' Act. ’ ’ Thereafter, the trial judge signed a certificate, certifying that Meeks was “very necessary” as a “material witness” and “defendants have alleged that it was not possible for” them “to proceed to trial without the presence of the said witness * * * in said criminal prosecution.” On the day the case was set for trial, defendants made a motion for a continuance on the ground that it was necessary to obtain the testimony of the absent witness; that the application presented to a trial judge in the State of Pennsylvania was denied, [55]*55and that petitioners liad tendered the necessary travel expense to bring the witness to Mississippi and return him to Pennsylvania. The motion for continuance sought time in which to employ an attorney in the State of Pennsylvania to appeal the order of the trial judge to an appellate court, in an effort to obtain the presence of the witness at their trial.

The motion for continuance alleged that the defense to be offered by defendants was entrapment. That is to say, appellants were inveigled into taking the property of the Telephone Company, for which they were arrested. Considerable evidence was taken upon this motion and finally overruled by the trial court. Appellants complain that this was error.

(Hn 1-4) We are of the opinion that the trial court cannot be put in error for overruling the motion for a continuance in this case for the reasons hereinafter set out.

Defendants offered evidence in an attempt to show that they were inveigled into taking money belonging to the Southern Bell Telephone Company by authorized agents of the Company, and assert that the Company thereby consented to the appropriation of the money by them. It is argued, in effect, that since the money was taken with the consent of the owner, it did not constitute grand larceny. The evidence introduced by defendants on the motion for continuance consisted of testimony given by Agents of the Southern Bell Telephone Company, in answer to questions propounded by the attorney for defendants. ■ Evidence offered on the motion for continuance, at -best, raised only an inference that the Southern Bell Telephone Company aided Meeks in obtaining a commuted sentence in Florida, and that he was their informant. 'The evidence, on the other hand, shows that the Southern Bell Telephone Company did not enter into an agreement with Meeks to inveigle appellants into taking money from their telephone cash [56]*56boxes. Evidence adduced shows that Meeks called the Special Agent for the Southern Bell Telephone Company and informed him that they were about to make a trip across the Southern part of the United States on Highway 90, through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and into Texas and Colorado, to rob pay stations across the country. Testimony of JohnD. Montgomery, witness for defendants, shows: “Now, then, I want' to ask you whether or not at any time there was ever any plan that Meeks was to take them to a particular telephone and induce them to break into a telephone, was there any such plan or arrangement?” A. “No, sir.” From this testimony, the trial judge could reasonably infer and find that there was no agreement to inveigle defendants into taking the money of the Southern Bell Telephone Company.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Mehozonek
456 N.E.2d 1353 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1983)
Smith v. State
248 So. 2d 436 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1971)
Averitt v. State
149 So. 2d 320 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1963)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
149 So. 2d 320, 246 Miss. 49, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/averett-v-state-miss-1963.