State v. Pritchett

524 S.W.2d 470, 1975 Tenn. LEXIS 664
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedJune 2, 1975
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 524 S.W.2d 470 (State v. Pritchett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Pritchett, 524 S.W.2d 470, 1975 Tenn. LEXIS 664 (Tenn. 1975).

Opinion

OPINION

HARBISON, Justice.

Respondents were jointly indicted by the Grand Jury of Hamilton County, Tennessee for the burglary of a warehouse and also for receiving and concealing ten automobile tires belonging to the warehouse. Upon the trial of the case the jury acquitted the respondents of the charges of burglary, but found them guilty on the charges of receiving and concealing. Pursuant to the provisions of T.C.A. § 39 — 4218, the jury were instructed that there could be a conviction only on one of the two charges of receiving and concealing, and the jury then found the defendants guilty of receiving stolen goods of a value in excess of one hundred dollars pursuant to T.C.A. § 39 — 4217(A). Each defendant was sentenced to serve not less nor more than three years in the state penitentiary.

Upon appeal of this conviction, the majority of the Court of Criminal Appeals found the evidence insufficient to establish ownership of the ten tires in question, and remanded the case for a new trial. This Court granted certiorari to consider the sufficiency of the evidence, and thereafter counsel for one of the respondents also assigned errors pursuant to the provisions of T.C.A. § 27-823.

There is little dispute as to the material facts. A warehouse owned by Cherokee Warehouses, Inc., situated on Eighth Avenue in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was equipped with a silent burglar alarm. On Sunday afternoon, May 6, 1973, at a time when the warehouse was closed for business, this alarm was tripped at 5:18. Charles W. Hill, an employee of the alarm company, and his supervisor noticed the signal in the offices of the company, American District Telegraph, and Mr. Hill immediately drove to the burglarized warehouse, while his supervisor telephoned the police. A member of the Chattanooga Police Department received the alert from the alarm company at approximately 5:20 p. m. and arrived at the warehouse within a very few moments. Upon turning into a large parking lot on the south side of the warehouse, he observed a white Chevrolet automobile bearing a Georgia license plate parked within 35 to 50 feet from the warehouse. Respondent Green was sitting in the automobile on the passenger’s side and respondent Pritchett was standing close to [471]*471the right side of the vehicle. The officer observed six new automobile tires with tags still attached, in the back seat of the automobile. The officer was alone, and he arrested both men and placed them in his automobile. He proceeded to examine the warehouse and discovered that a sliding door had been broken open, approximately 70 feet from the automobile of respondents. It was the breaking of this door which had tripped the silent alarm.

When the officer returned to his automobile he was told by respondent Green that the two men had purchased the automobile tires in their car from an unidentified Negro man, who was supposed to meet the respondents at the location where their car was found.

Four additional new automobile tires were found in the trunk of the automobile of respondents. All of the tires had a manufacturer’s label still attached to them. Mr. Hill, the employee of the alarm company, and Mr. Robert E. Troutman, Jr., manager of the warehouse, arrived at the scene. Both of them saw the tires in the automobile belonging .to respondents, and heard the respondents state that they had purchased the tires from two unidentified Negro men.

Mr. Troutman, the warehouse manager, stated that the warehouse would normally have been closed since Friday afternoon. He was not sure whether any work had been done at the warehouse on Saturday, but he said that only authorized personnel of the warehouse company would have been allowed to enter the warehouse when it was closed, and that they would have had to have clearance from the alarm company. The warehouse was not open on Sunday, and he said that neither of the respondents was an employee of the company or had any authority to enter the warehouse.

Mr. Troutman said that the automobile tires in question were Uniroyal tires. He said that the manufacturer of these tires stored many types of tires in the commercial warehouse. He said:

“That particular warehouse has many lines of tires, so in warehousing we keep up with them by manufacturer’s code. I took the manufacturer’s code down of all the tires that were in the car.”

Mr. Troutman stated that there were tires in the respondent’s automobile containing a number of different codes. He then testified:

“I inventoried control Monday after that and, for instance, there was one-inch 33083502.
“Q Now, what is that? That’s manufacturer’s—
“A (Interposing) Manufacturer’s Code. There was one of these tires in their car. There was 34 in our control that were in that warehouse at that time.
“Q And how many were in the warehouse — there were, supposed to be 34—
“A (Interposing) Thirty-four of that particular tire was stored in that warehouse at that time.
“Q All right, and one of those tires was found in that car?
“A Yes, sir.”

Mr. Troutman also stated that a number of other tires correlating with other inventory codes were found in the automobile. He then testified:

“Q Now, Mr. Troutman, having done all this, looked at those tires, those ten tires in that automobile, and talked of your inventory list that you’ve just gone through, and knowing what was in those warehouses, those ten tires in that ear belonged to whom?
“A They actually belonged to the Uniroyal Corporation. Cherokee Warehouse is an agent for Uniroyal in this particular case.
“Q They were stored by, for Uniroyal by Cherokee Warehouses in that warehouse, CH 4?
“A Yes, sir.”

[472]*472Although Mr. Troutman was cross-examined extensively, the foregoing, in our opinion, certainly constitutes some evidence for consideration by the jury as to the ownership of the tires in question, and we therefore are not able to agree with the majority opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals that there was insufficient evidence of the ownership of the tires in question. It is true that Mr. Troutman later testified that he did not personally go to the various racks where the lot numbers were stored to see how many tires of particular lot numbers were missing, but certainly the weight and credibility of his testimony were issues for the jury, and we are unable to say that the evidence preponderates against the verdict of the jury. On appeal from a conviction, the State is entitled to have the appellate court take the strongest legitimate view of the evidence in its favor, and, viewed in that light, we are of the opinion that there was ample evidence of the element of ownership of the tires to sustain the verdict of receiving stolen property.

The offense of receiving stolen property is defined in T.C.A. § 39-4217(A) as follows:

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Related

Jerry v. Smith
Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1996
State v. Bray
669 S.W.2d 684 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1983)
State v. Braggs
604 S.W.2d 883 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1980)
State v. Moore
596 S.W.2d 841 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1980)
State v. Hill
598 S.W.2d 815 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1980)
State v. Denami
594 S.W.2d 747 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1979)
Beasley v. State
539 S.W.2d 820 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1976)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
524 S.W.2d 470, 1975 Tenn. LEXIS 664, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-pritchett-tenn-1975.