Ashley v. Commonwealth

Tried upon an indictment charging him with grand larceny, George Felix Ashley, Jr., was found guilty by a jury, which fixed his punishment at a fine of $1,000; judgment was entered upon the jury verdict. The sole question raised by Ashley on appeal is whether certain testimony which the trial court admitted over his objection constituted inadmissible hearsay.

On November 22, 1976, the management of I.T.T. Gwaltney, Inc., at Smithfield, discovered that some cooked hams were missing. Lee Marshall, the company’s Security Director, examined 20 empty ham boxes lying on the loading dock. He wrote…