People v. Stone

Baldwin, J. delivered the opinion of the Court Field, C. J. and Cope, J. concurring.

In this case, the defendant was convicted of larceny, the offense charged being the felonious taking of a wagon and team. It was [371]proved by the prosecution that Stone owed the prosecutor, Barrett, a sum of money, and, to secure it, made to Barrett a bill of sale of this property, and delivered him the possession. The bill of sale was absolute on its face, but the agreement or undertaking was, that Barrett should keep the property until the profits had paid him about the sum of $1,000, or until the indebtedness had been otherwise paid; in which event the property was to be delivered back to Stone. Subsequently to this transaction, one Lipstein, a teamster of the prosecutor, by the latter’s direction, drove off a horse and mule—part of the property conveyed—in a two-horse wagon. He was ordered to go to a mill in the neighborhood, but instead of going there, he went to Sacramento with the wagon and animals, where they were levied on by the Sheriff, for a debt of Stone’s. It was sought to connect Stone with this transaction. After proof of this character, and other proof, the defendant proposed to go into a statement of accounts between him and Barrett, in order to show that the debt to Barrett had been paid prior to the taking of the property by Lipstein; but the Court refused to hear the proof, upon the ground that this matter “ must be settled in another Court.” In this ruling the Court erred. The crime of larceny is compounded of the taking and carrying away of property and the felonious Untent. Whatever has a legal tendency to show the intent, is proper evidence. The facts sought to be introduced, whatever weight they were entitled to, tended to explain the transaction. If, for example, the defendant showed that this debt had been discharged, and that, by the contract, this discharge revested the property in him, the taking of the property from the possession of Barrett would be presented in a different light from that of a taking when he had no right or claim to it. It is not every trespass that is a larceny. The felony is in the intent to appropriate another’s property, the taker knowing that he had no right or claim to it; and although this intent may sometimes be presumed from circumstances, yet, in cases like the present, the law permits all the facts connected with the title and the taking to come before the jury, that they may judge of the intent. If the transaction were as the witness for the prosecution describes it, the bill of sale would amount only to a mortgage; and though this, Coupled with the possession, would, until payment, give the mortgagee such title as that a felonious taking of the property by the mortgagor would be larceny, yet the defendant was entitled to show that, by the terms of the contract, he was entitled to the possession, and that it was his own property,