Alba

The defendant was charged with the crime of grand larceny. He was tried and convicted. An appeal is taken from the judgment and from the order denying motion for a new trial. The principal question presented upon the appeal is based upon the contention that the evidence did not establish a corpus delicti, and that the horse may have wandered away instead of being stolen.

[1] The material facts of the case are as follows: Pete Cooper, an Indian, was the owner of a mare which has been his since 1914. At the trial he testified that on the night of November 18, 1920, he had this mare on his place in Imperial County, near Yuma. He staked her out, but on the following morning she was not. there. He examined the stake hole and it was straight. He knew the mare’s footmarks and followed them for about seven miles; they led in the direction of Holtville. There were also buggy tracks and the marks of another horse’s hoofs, and all of these led directly from the witness’ house. On the next day the witness found the horse in the corral in Holtville, where it had been taken by the town marshal. Gillette, the town marshal of Holtville, testified that on the nineteenth day of November he drove…