People v. Prather

GAROUTTE, J.

William H. Prather has been convicted of the crime of grand larceny, and appeals from the judgment rendered against him. The attention of the court will be directed first to a consideration of the sufficiency of the information.

Section 786 of the Penal Code provides: “ When property taken in one county by burglary, robbery, larceny, or embezzlement, has been brought into another, the jurisdiction of the offense is in either county.” The present prosecution is based upon the provisions of the aforesaid section of the code, the subject-matter of the larceny being forty-eight sacks of buckwheat, charged to have been stolen in the county of Yolo by defendants, and thereafter brought by them into the county of Sacramento. That portion of the information to which our attention will be directed is as follows: “The said William H. Prather and Charles Davis, on the - day of March, A. D.

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1900, at the said county of Sacramento, in- the said state of California, and before the filing of this information, did then and there willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously steal, take, and carry away from A. D. Miller and Adolph Jean," in the county of Yolo, in the state of California, forty-eight'sacks of buckwheat, then and there the personal property of the said A. D. Miller and Adolph Jean, and said personal property being then and there of the value of one hundred dollars, in lawful money of the United States of America; that after such unlawful and felonious stealing, taking, and carrying away as aforesaid, the said defendants did then and there bring said personal property, so taken, stolen, and carried away as aforesaid, into the said county of Sacramento, in the state of California.” In the first part of this information, it is charged that the defendants, at the county of Sacramento, did take, steal, and carry away from Miller and Jean, in the county of Yolo, this buckwheat. We are at a loss to see how it could be done. It would seem to be a physical impossibility for these defendants, at the county of Sacramento, to steal this buckwheat in the county of Yolo. But no demurrer was interposed upon this ground, and this defect in the information is not fatal to the pleading. After the information alleges the property to have been stolen in Yolo County, it alleges that the defendants did “bring said personal property, so taken, stolen, and carried away as aforesaid, into the county of Sacramento.” This part of the information is the vital part of it, so far as the county of Sacramento is concerned, for in this language must be found sufficient to give the superior court of Sacramento County jurisdiction of the offense. If the court did not gain jurisdiction of the offense by this language, it had no jurisdiction whatever to try these defendants.