Griggs v. State

58 Ala. 425
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedDecember 15, 1877
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 58 Ala. 425 (Griggs v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Griggs v. State, 58 Ala. 425 (Ala. 1877).

Opinion

MANNING, J.

1. Appellant was indicted for tbe larceny of a sack of coffee. It bad dropped from a wagon-load of goods while being hauled from Eufaula to Clayton, about twenty miles distant, along a highway in Barbour county, and was not long afterwards, on the same day, found, between three and four miles from Eufaula, just over a fence by the) highway, and near some bushes, about fifty yards beyond a) gate at which defendant’s ox-wagon was standing, and! through which he had to pass on his way home with his wagon. Some circumstances were proved tending to show ’ defendant had put the sack where it was found; but he denied that he had seen it or knew anything about it. It was proved that he said he had been “pretty much in sight” of the wagon from which it was dropped, from Eufaula for about a mile or more, where he had turned off to a gin-house to get some cotton-seed, which he had in his wagon; but the driver of the other wagon, who had, after this, seen the sack of coffee in it, testified that he “had not seen defendant since he left Eufaula, that he was not in sight of witness’ wagon, nor did witness ever see or hear defendant, or his wagon, until after the coffee was lost.” There is no evidence in thei record that there was any mark on the sack of coffee, or \ other indicium, by which the owner could be known, or any i other evidence than that mentioned above, that defendant [430]*430knew who the owner was. But it is not expressly said in the bill of exceptions, that it contains all the evidence given, and, therefore, we cannot, according to the decisions of this court, hold that it does.

2. There is no error in the charge that was given by the judge to the jury. If the defendant feloniously took and carried away the sack of coffee from the public road, and knew when he took it who the owner was, or had immediate means of ascertaining or finding out who the owner was, then .he was guilty of larceny thereof. It seems to have been formerly held in England, and is'still, or lately, was held in one or two of the States of this Union, that the finder of an inanimate chattel that was really lost could not be found guilty of stealing it. “Lord Coeb lays down the law as drawn from the year books, (3 Inst. 107) to be, that if' one lose his goods and another find them, though he convert them, animo furandi, to his own use, yet -it is no larceny.” So, “in 2 East’s P. C. 663, it is expressly stated that where one finds a purse in the highway, which he takes and carries away, it is no felony, although it may be attended with all those circumstances which usually prove a felonious intent, such as denying and secreting it.” In the People v. Anderson (14 Johns. R. 296) from which the, foregoing extracts are taken, the defendant was indicted for stealing a trunk, which (it was believed) had fallen from a stage-coach on the highway and been found by him. The court below instructed the jury that if he took the trunk with intent to steal it, they ought to find him guilty; and that' in determining that question, they had a right to take into consideration the prisoner’s subsequent conduct as well as all the circumstances in the case. The Supreme Court of Nerv York reversed the judgment, and said: “The bona fide finder of a lost article, or of a lost trunk containing goods, cannot be guilty of larceny by any subsequent act of his in concealing or appropriating to his own use, the article or the contents of a trunk thus found. There can be no trespass in taking a chattel found in the highway, and the finder has a right to keep the possession against every one but the true owner. How, then, can it be that a thing found bona fide, and of which the finder has a right to take possession, shall be deemed to be taken feloniously, in consequence of a subsequent conversion, by denying and secreting it with an intention to appropriate it to the use of the finder.” See, also, The People v. Cogsdale, 1 Hill, 46; Lawrence v. The State, 1 Humph. 228; Porter v. The State, Mart. & Yerg. 226. By the words bona fide in the passage above, the court meant really, truly — that is, if the trunk had not been taken from the stage coach, but had truly [431]*431dropped from it in the public road, and been there really found by the prisoner.

8. The idea was, that the finder of an article lost on a highway, has a right to it against every body else than the true owner, and may take it and carry it away. And if he subsequently appropriates it to his own use, he does not thereby subject himself to punishment as a thief, although he may know, when he does so, who the owner is. This is in law a conversion only, very dishonest, it is true, but not larceny. The prevailing doctrine, though, is that if he take it even from a highway, animo furandi, with the intent to steal it, and this intent exists when he takes it, he is in law guilty of larceny.

4. But how shall a jury know whether or not the intent to steal existed at the time of the taking ? The law, in its humanity, requires them to presume any one on trial before them to be innocent. The guilt of the accused must be proved; and it must be proved by evidence showing that the intent to steal accompanied the act of taking, and stamped a larcenous character on his conduct from the beginning. If, at the tim9 of finding it, he does not know, or have the immediate means of knowing whose it is, evidence of a hiding of the article or of a disposing of it, afterwards, though only a very short time afterwards, is evidence of the intent then existing, in a mind that, perhaps, has just yielded to and been overcome by the temptation produced by possession and a reluctance to surrender what had not been dishonestly obtained. But such misconduct, especially after the owner is known, is, in the apprehension of those who have had proper moral training, so little better than larceny, that upon proof of it, a jury would generally be inclined to convict. And yet the defendant might, consistently with all such evi-i deuce, have had no intention to steal the article when he; found it. The law, therefore, requires that it be further! shown that defendant, when he found the article, knew who the owner of it was, or had then and there the means of knowing whose it was. Says Mr. Bishop (in the 6th ed. of his Commentaries on Criminal Law): “A man knowing the owner of goods cannot lawfully pick them up without returning them to him; but a man not knowing the owner can. The doctrine, therefore, is, that if, when one takes goods into his hands he sees about them any marks, or otherwise learns any facts, by which he knows who the owner is, yet with felonious intent appropriates them to his own use, he is guilty of larceny, otherwise not. Some of the cases say if he knows who the owner is or has the means of ascertaining ; but the better doctrine is, as before set down, because every [432]*432man, by advertising and inquiry, can find the owner, if he is to be found, while the guilt of the defendant must attach at the moment, if ever.” — 2 Yol. § 882. The doctrine above laid down is that |of thecase of Regina v. Thurbourn, 1 Denn. C. C. 387; (2 Leading Crim. Cases, 48) in which Baron Parke delivered a long and well considered opinion. A like conclusion was reached in Tanner's case, (14 Grattan), by the Court of Appeals of Yirginia, after a thorough examination of the cases, including those mentioned in the elaborate note to Regina v. Preston, 2 Lead. Crim. Cases, 31. “We have seen,” says Allen, president of the court, “from the authorities, that where there are no indicia,

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Bluebook (online)
58 Ala. 425, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/griggs-v-state-ala-1877.