Peterson

The plaintiff in error, Mitchell Peterson, hereinafter referred to as the defendant, was found guilty of buying and receiving stolen cattle, and was sentenced to imprisonment for one year and a day in the penitentiary, and to pay the costs of prosecution, taxed at $1,189.35. Jointly with Walter Peterson, Oscar Peterson, Melvin Peterson, his brothers, and Charles Peterson, his father, he was charged upon four different counts. Apparently at the first trial of the case two of the defendants were acquitted, and there was a disagreement as to the other three, including this defendant. Upon this, the second trial, the defendant was found guilty upon the first count, and acquitted upon the other three; his codefendants were found not guilty.

[1] The first count, which is the only one we need now consider, charges that on the 21st day of October, 1910, within the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, in the state of Montana, where the defendants resided, they bought a steer and three cows, knowing them to have been stolen. It was admitted at the trial that the purchase was made from one John Bostwick, by whom it was further admitted the stock had been stolen. The statute upon which the charge…