Commonwealth v. McGarvey

165 S.W. 973, 158 Ky. 570, 1914 Ky. LEXIS 670
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedApril 28, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 165 S.W. 973 (Commonwealth v. McGarvey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. McGarvey, 165 S.W. 973, 158 Ky. 570, 1914 Ky. LEXIS 670 (Ky. Ct. App. 1914).

Opinion

Opinion op the Court by

Judge Hannah

Certifying the law of the ease.

Charles and Joseph McGarvey were jointly indicted by the grand jury of Kenton County for the crime of receiving stolen goods knowing them to have been stolen. The indictment charged that ’ the defendants received from one Charles Bettman, alias John Shannon, and Albert Frank Essen, seventeen pairs of ladies oxford shoes, the property of the Krippendorf-Dittman Company, o.f Cincinnati, Ohio, which had by said Shannon and Essen - been stolen from the Southern Freight Depot. • .

The defendants moved for a severance; the motion was sustained; and the Commonwealth elected to try Charles McGarvey first.

■At the conclusion of the evidence for the Commonwealth, on motion of defendant, the court first excluded from the jury all testimony with reference to goods found in the possession of. the defendant other than the [572]*572shoes with the receiving of which he was charged in the indictment, and then directed a verdict for the defendant. The Commonwealth appeals, and asks a certification of the law of the case.

The order dismissing the defendant does not state upon what grounds this action was taken by the lower court; out the motion for peremptory instruction made by defendant’s counsel was based upon the following stated grounds, viz.: That there was a variance between the allegation of the indictment and the proof, in respect of the ownership of the stolen shoes; that the evidence of Essen, who stole the shoes, and sold them to the defendant, and was, therefore, an accomplice, was not corroborated; that the Commonwealth failed to show that the defendant received the stolen shoes, or that he knew they were stolen.

1. As to the matter of a variance between the indictment and the proof in respect to the ownership of the stolen shoes, it was conclusively shown by evidence that the shoes in question were part of a shipment, consisting of two boxes of shoes, made by the Krippendorf-Dittman Company, of Cincinnati, to A. C. Link, at Hickory, N. C., and that said shipment was delivered to the freight depot of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad in Cincinnati, from which one of said boxes was stolen by Shannon and Essen.

As to whether the shoes when stolen were the property of the shipper or of the consignee, the rule has been stated as follows: “Ordinarily, a delivery of goods by the seller to a carrier is a delivery to the purchaser, but the delivery must be of goods of the proper quality and in the proper quantity.” 35 Cye., 193. “And, since a delivery to a carrier under proper conditions is a delivery to the buyer, such delivery is sufficient to transfer the property in the goods, subject to the shipper’s right of stoppage in transit. The rule presupposes, however, that the delivery is complete; that the goods are of the kind and quality and in the quantities ordered; that they are shipped according to the directions given by the buyer; that they are consigned in the name of the buyer, or that the bill of lading is endorsed and delivered so as to confer on the consignee the right to receive the goods from the carrier without reservation.” 35 Cyc., 316.

Having these principles in mind, it is impossible to say from the evidence in the record whether the prop[573]*573erty in the shoes had passed from the Krippendorf-Dittman Company to the consignee, Link, or not.

But, for the purpose of certifying the law of the case, it will be assumed that the property in the shoes had passed from shipper to consignee; and that, therefore, there was a variance between the allegation of the indictment, and the evidence, in respect of the matter of the ownership of the stolen shoes.

2. It is contended by the Commonwealth that in an indictment for this crime, a mis-description of ownership is not material.

Section 128 of the Criminal Code is as follows: “If an offense involve the commission of, or an attempt to commit an injury to person or property, or the taking of property, and be described in other respects with sufficient certainty to identify the act, an erroneous allegation as to the person injured or attempted to be injured, or as to the owner of the property taken or injured or attempted to be injured, is not material.”

This section has been held to apply to the following crimes: House-breaking, Johnson v. Commonwealth, 87 Ky., 189; Burglary, Oliver v. Commonwealth, 5 Bush, 376; Obtaining money under false pretenses, Hennessey v. Commonwealth, 88 Ky., 301; Arson, Commonwealth v. Napier, 27 R., 131, 84 S. W., 536, and Overstreet v. Commonwealth, 147 Ky., 471, 144 S. W., 751; Robbery, Bibb v. Commonwealth, 112 S. W., 401, 33 R., 776.

And the court is of the opinion that it also applies to indictments for the crime of receiving stolen goods knowing them to have been stolen. This section was intended to and should especially be made to apply to just such cases as this, where it is practically impossible to tell whether the property in goods in the possession of a common carrier has passed to the consignee thereof or still remains in the shipper.

Under this section of the Code, this court has uniformly held that where the act within this section is particularly and sufficiently described so that it may be identified as the one which the accused is called upon to answer, whether the owner of the property taken or injured is correctly named, is immaterial. Taylor v. Commonwealth, 25 R., 374, 75 S. W., 244. See also Newton v. Commonwealth, 158 Ky., 5, in which the court said that m an indictment for receiving stolen goods, the allegation of ownership is merely for the purpose of identifying and describing the stolen property and is [574]*574not an essential element of the crime denounced by the statute.

In the case at bar, the indictment, aside from the allegation of ownership of the stolen goods, charged the defendant with receiving seventeen pairs of ladies oxford shoes which had been stolen by Shannon and Essen flora the Southern '’Freight Depot; and it is certainly sufficient to apprise the defendant of the charge which he was called, upon to answer.

3. 'The Commonwealth also complains of the action of the trial court in excluding from the jury all the testimony with reference to goods found in the possession of the defendant other than the shoes mentioned in the indictment. It is not clear from the language of this order just what evidence was excluded, but it seems that the court intended to exclude the testimony of the officers who searched defendant’s rooms relative to what they found there, except that they found therein the shoes mentioned in the indictment, and also the evidence showing that goods found in defendant’s rooms other than the shoes named in the indictment had- been owned by wholesale merchants of Cincinnati.

It was shown in the evidence that the defendant, Charles McGarvey was unmarried; that he operated a saloon at 1514 Russell street, in Covington, and lived in the rooms up stairs over his saloon. It was shown that the detectives found in the saloon and in the rooms over the saloon occupied by McGarvey in addition to the shoes mentioned in the indictment, a large quantity of goods and merchandise, among which were one hundred and twenty-seven pairs of shoes, fifty-four dozen neclc-ties, fifty-seven pairs of gloves, fifteen searchlights, three bolts of cloth, cutlery, dresses, suits, dry goods and notions of various kinds.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
165 S.W. 973, 158 Ky. 570, 1914 Ky. LEXIS 670, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-mcgarvey-kyctapp-1914.