Dean Deport Liakas and Frank James Ellsworth v. State of Tennesse

Summary

The Supreme Court of Tennessee affirmed the convictions of Dean Deport Liakas and Frank James Ellsworth for receiving stolen property, for which the jury fixed punishment at not more than seven years in the state penitentiary. It held that circumstantial evidence—the matching manufacturer and pattern, the excised retailer's label, the unfinished trouser legs, the stock and sales records, and the defendants' presence in Levy Brothers' Memphis store the day before—was sufficient for the jury to identify the suit as the one stolen from Levy Brothers. The court further upheld the warrantless search of the defendants' parked automobile as a reasonable search incident to a lawful felony arrest, prompted by Liakas's attempt to swallow the parking claim check, and approved the testimony that additional suits in the car had been stolen from Daniels as falling within the common-scheme-or-plan exception to the rule against other-crimes evidence. Justice Burnett delivered the opinion of the Court.