Hinson v. State

62 Fla. 63
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJune 15, 1911
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 62 Fla. 63 (Hinson v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hinson v. State, 62 Fla. 63 (Fla. 1911).

Opinion

Hocicer, J.

— This case was before this court at the January term, A. D. 1910, and is reported in 59 Fla. 20, 52 South. Rep. 194. An information was filed in the Criminal Court of Record in Duval County against the plaintiff in error, Hinson, in which he was charged, in the first county, with the larceny of a bracelet of the value of |5,000 of the property of the Southern Express Company, and in the second count with having, receiving, [65]*65buying and aiding in the concealment of the same property. The date of these crimes is alleged to be the 25th of January, 1909, and the place Duval County, Florida. The defendant, Hinson, pleaded not guilty. He was tried the last time in March, 1911, and found guilty of grand larceny, .and sentenced to the Penitentiary for eighteen months. This judgment is here for review on writ of error.

Before considering the assignments of error we will as briefly as possible state the facts which were established in the trial.

On the 23rd of January, 19.09, Frank C. Hutchinson, an experienced jeweller, employed by Albert H. Smith & Company of New York, acting for his employers, shipped to Greenleaf & Crosby of Miami, Florida, a unique and valuable bracelet, worth, with its gems, $4,400.00. He shipped it by the Adams Express Company in a carefully prepared box, or package, and directed to Greenleaf -& Crosby. The bracelet was set with four valuable diamonds and four emeralds. ' It is shown with reasonable certainty that this package, or box, arrived intact in Jacksonville, Florida, over the Southern Express Company, which connected with the Adams Express Company, on the 25th of January, 1909, and was there transferred in the Union Depot to the messenger of the South ern Express Company running to Miami on the same afternoon. There was no value named on the package, and ■the messenger did not take especial care to look it up when checked out to him, but placed it in a basket with other express packages, which were put on a truck and carried by a negro porter to the express car going to Miami. After the train started and before reaching Bayard Station, in Duval- County, he checked over the packages and missed the one we have described. The [66]*66defendant, Hinson, was also an express messenger running between Jacksonville and Wilcox, and was around tbe depot that afternoon when tbe express matter was being checked to its proper destination. He was not seen, however, in close proximity to this package. When informed of the loss of the package steps were taken to recover it. T. J. Watts, a special agent, or detective, of the Southern Express Company, visited Jacksonville some time after the loss of the package to investigate. He saw the messengers going in and out of Jacksonville, including the defendant, Hinson, and he says, though that is denied by Hinson, that he told Hinson of the loss, and described the bracelet to him, showing him a cut of it. He says Hinson stated he had not seen or heard anything of it, but would look out for it. In view of Hinson’s prevarications, as will hereafter be referred to, we are not disposed to attach any importance to his denial of what Watts said. Watts went North then, and on the 19th or 20th of March he returned to Jacksonville because of information he had received which led him to think Hinson knew something of the bracelet. He took out a warrant and engaged the services of Detectives Crawford and Cahoon. They met the train as it came in from Wilcox and took charge of Hinson, who, it seems, was already arrested. They proceeded to take Hinson to Superintendent Haile’s office. On the way Hinson desired them to stop at Butler’s Saloon, which they did, and he there undertook to deliver to his brother a small grip-sack he carried in his .hand, alleging it contained soiled clothes. They would not permit him to thus part with the grip, and took possession of it and proceeded to Haile’s office. They there opened the grip in his presence and found three diamond rings and a bracelet, though not the one they were looking for. It was dis[67]*67covered in the conversation with him that a fourth diamond ring was in his wife's possession. At Watts’ request he gave him an order on his wife for this ring. In accounting for the diamond rings he said he found the stones about a year before in Savannah, Georgia, while he was messenger between Jacksonville and Savannah; that he found them one morning in passing out of the depot across the street in front of the Union Station; that ho walked over a package wrapped in tissue paper, which contained the diamonds, a pocket knife, a scarf pin and some other little articles, and that he did not know the value of the diamonds until about a year after he found them; that he turned them over to his wife, who kept them rintil a few weeks before his arrest. After he made this statement Watts and the detectives, or one of them, went to Hinson’s home in Jacksonville, gave the order for the ring to Mrs. Hinson, which, after some delay, she gave them. They then received from her the bracelet, which was exhibited in evidence as the one which was stolen from the Southern Express Company. They then returned to the jail where Hinson was and told him about getting the bracelet from his wife. They did not mention the bracelet when he was arrested and his grip opened, so that he had not-been afforded an opportunity to explain the possession by his wife of the bracelet. Hinson then stated that his first explanation was a lie; that he thought the officers Avere trying “to do 'him.” He then said he was walking doAvn Bay Street on the afternoon of the 10th of January, 1909, and saw a negro boy, riding a bicycle, drop a package. He, Hinson, picked up the package, did not examine it, but put it in his pocket, as he was about to leave on his run. He examined it while he Avas out on his run, and found it contained the bracelet in question with the diamond and emerald settings. [68]*68He took them home and gave them to his wife. Abont a month after he found them he said a lady who saw the bracelet said it was a valuable one. He had no information of its value before. He then carried the bracelet with him on one of his runs and pried the diamonds out with his knife, and took three of them to Hess & Slager and had them mounted. The fourth he had mounted by a Mr. Stuart. Stuart says he told Hinson the stone was worth from $100.00 to $175.00, and that Hinson said he had just paid Hess & Slager $200.00 for it. These diamonds were identified with reasonable certainty as being the same stones which were in the bracelet. In fact, it is not denied that they were the same diamonds which Hinson pried out of the bracelet which he alleged he found. The evidence establishes with reasonable certainty that the bracelet which was in evidence was the bracelet in which the diamonds were mounted before it was shipped from New York by Hutchinson. The defendant, Hinson, introduced several witnesses, his wife, sister-in-law and two or three friends, or acquaintances, to sustain his contention that he found the diamonds on Bay Street on the 10th of January, 1909. The testimony of his sister-in-law contradicts his testimony as to when he removed the diamonds from the bracelet. She says she- went with his wife across the river to a show of some kind on the 20th of January, 1909; that his wife wore the bracelet in question, and that it had no diamonds in it then. According to his statement, the diamonds were removed something like a month after the 10th of January, 1909. It is not necessary to question the veracity of this or his other witnesses when they speak of this bracelet.

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62 Fla. 63, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hinson-v-state-fla-1911.