Opinion
June 27, 1952. Rehearing Denied July 24, 1952.
Appeal from the Circuit Court, Marion County, F.R. Hocker, J.
Ray Sandstrom, Lakeland, for appellants.
Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., and Reeves Bowen, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The appellants were jointly tried and convicted of the larceny of an automobile and have appealed from the judgments of conviction. The sole question presented is the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain their convictions.
As to the appellant Norton, the State introduced in evidence a pre-trial statement by Norton admitting that he had been in possession of the stolen car. While Norton attempted to account for his possession of the car in such statement, the jury was not required to believe his exculpatory remarks, particularly in view of the fact that Norton first said at the time of his arrest that he knew nothing about the stolen vehicle, nor did he testify at the trial as to the truth of the exculpatory statements.
This court said in McDonald v. State, 56 Fla. 74, 47 So. 485, 486, "The account given must be not only reasonable, but it must be credible, or enough so to raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury, who are the judges of its reasonableness and probability, as well as of its credibility. The account given may be reasonable and highly plausible, yet, if the jury do not believe it, they have the right to convict upon the evidence furnished by the possession of the stolen goods alone, even though the state does not put in any evidence directly to prove the falsity of the account given."
The conviction of the appellant Norton must, therefore, be affirmed under the authority of McDonald v. State, supra.
The State concedes the insufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction of the Appellant Lancaster. A study of the evidence leads us to the same conclusion. The judgment as to Lancaster is, therefore reversed.
The judgment against Norton should be and it is hereby affirmed.
The judgment against Lancaster should be and it is hereby reversed.
SEBRING, C.J., MATHEWS, J., and REVELS, Associate Justice, concur.