State v. Anderson

25 Minn. 66, 1878 Minn. LEXIS 10
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedMay 10, 1878
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 25 Minn. 66 (State v. Anderson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Anderson, 25 Minn. 66, 1878 Minn. LEXIS 10 (Mich. 1878).

Opinion

Cornell, J.

The offence charged against the defendant is that of larceny, committed, as is alleged, “by feloniously taking, stealing and carrying away from the possession of the [67]*67complainant, four dollars and sixty cents, lawful money of the United States of America, of the following denominations, to wit, one two-dollar bill, two one-dollar bills, and one fifty-cent scrip, and one ten-cent scrip, the property of the complainant,” etc. The phrase “four dollars and sixty cents, lawful money of the United States of America, ” necessarily imports that much of value, and its meaning would not have been any more clear if the pleader had added thereto the words, “of the value of four dollars and sixty cents.” The objection that the warrant fails to state the value of the property stolen, is, therefore, untenable. The description of the property is sufficiently definite and certain fully to apprise the accused of the specific offence with which he was charged, and “to enable the court to pronounce judgment, upon a conviction, according to the right of the case.” Gen. St. c. 108, § 10. It is perfectly clear, to the most common apprehension, that the property which the defendant is charged to have stolen consisted of such bills and scrip as are authorized, by the laws of the United States, to circulate as money. The omission, therefore, to state in the warrant whether the bills were treasury notes, or national-bank notes, is not, in our judgment, a fatal defect. The denomination, and the number of each denomination, are given. The offence was the same, whether the bills stolen were all treasury-notes or bank-notes, or whether they consisted partly of each. The main office of the description was to specify the offence with such a degree of particularity as to guard the accused against any surprise on the trial, and fully protect him from a second conviction for the same offence. In ease defendant is ever subjected to another prosecution for the same offence charged against him in this warrant upon which he has been convicted, there can be no difficulty, under a plea of former conviction, in identifying it, and the particular transaction out of which it arose.

Within the doctrine of State v. Taunt, 16 Minn. 110, the [68]*68warrant is good. See, also, State v. Beebe, 17 Minn. 249, and State v. Hockenberry, 30 Iowa, 504.

2. It is objected that the justice had no jurisdiction over the offence, because it was committed just outside the territorial limits of Scott county, though within one hundred rods of the boundary line.

In State v. Robinson, 14 Minn. 447, this court sustained an indictment found by the grand jury of Carver county, for an offence committed in Scott county, within one hundred rods of the dividing line between those counties, on the ground that Gen. St. c. 108, § 20, extended territorially the criminal jurisdiction of the district court that distance beyond the boundary line of the county wherein it was sitting. The question now presented is whether this section is'also applicable to justices’ courts. It is insisted by defendant that it is not, because the introduction of the section into the chapter relating to indictments, and the use of the word “indictment” in the section itself, both indicate an intention to confine its provisions to criminal proceedings by indictment alone. The section is as follows: “Offences committed on the boundary lines of two counties, or within one hundred rods of the dividing line between them, may be alleged in the indictment to have been committed in either of them, and may be prosecuted and punished in either county.” The fact that this section is found under the head of “indictments,” is by no means conclusive of a legislative intent to limit its applications to proceedings by indictment. The inference sought to be drawn from this fact is rebutted, in part, at least, by the fact that the provisions of sections twelve and thirteen, of the same chapter, have a general application to pleadings in all courts.

Criminal offences are often committed on, or so near, a dividing line between two counties, as to render it difficult, if not altogether impracticable, to determine with certainty within which of the two they were in fact committed. In such cases, in the absence of any suitable statutory provision meeting them, doubts necessarily exist concerning the right [69]*69venue for the prosecution and trial, and many embarrassing questions, growing out of this uncertainty, must frequently arise, difficult of solution, if not prejudicial to the interests of public justice. To obviate these doubts, and avoid all such questions, was the obvious purpose of this section of our statutes, and its provisions should be benignly interpreted to this end. Thus considered and construed, the provision that “offences committed” in tjie places mentioned, “may be alleged, in the indictment, to have been committed in either” county, must be held as simply providing a rule of pleading for such cases, and not as limiting the general scope of the section, or the offences which it declares “may be prosecuted and punished in either county.” The beneficial purpose of the statute is best subserved in holding the latter clause as applicable to all offences committed within the territorial limits designated, whether indictable or not, and in harmony therewith is the preceding clause, which obviates all difficulty in pleading the fact as to the precise place of the commission of the offence, whenever it becomes necessary to state it in an indictment. If, in the administration of criminal law, this enactment is needful for district courts, it is equally so, and for like reasons of public policy, for justices of the peace, as examining and committing magistrates, or as trial courts for minor offences; and this suggests that its provisions should be construed as extending to both, unless a contrary construction is constrained by the plain import of its language.

In Commonwealth v. Gillon, 2 Allen, 502, the precise question here presented was considered and determined. In that case, the jurisdiction of a police court over an offence committed in an adjoining county, but within one hundred rods of the boundary line, was objected to, under a statute substantially identical with our own, and upon the same grounds urged by defendant in this case. The objections were overruled, and the jurisdiction sustained by the supreme court, in an opinion in which a construction was given to the statute, [70]*70such as we feel no hesitation in adopting and following as correct. Defendant’s second point is therefore overruled.

3. The facts testified to in connection with the alleged larceny, briefly stated, are these: The accused, being in a buggy, and in a hurry to cross the Minnesota river, applied to one Baldwin, the complaining witness herein, who was operating a ferry, to cross him over as quickly as possible, in order to enable him to reach a train on the Minneapolis and St. Louis railroad. While being ferried hurriedly over, but before reaching the opposite shore, he asked Baldwin, on being told the amount, of the fee or charge, if he could change a five-dollar bill. The latter at once took out his wallet, stepped between the wheels, and, as the wind was blowing at the time, proceeded to count out the required amount, in change, over and above the ferriage fee, placing it in the bottom of the buggy, in front of defendant, who was on the seat.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
25 Minn. 66, 1878 Minn. LEXIS 10, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-anderson-minn-1878.