State v. Clark

89 Mo. 423
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedApril 15, 1886
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 89 Mo. 423 (State v. Clark) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Clark, 89 Mo. 423 (Mo. 1886).

Opinion

Ray, J.

At the November term, 1885, of the circuit court of Cooper county, the defendant, John Clark, and one Straub Young, were jointly indicted for larceny committed in a dwelling house in said county. The indictment was framed upon section 1309, Revised Statutes 1879, which provides that: “ If any larceny be committed in a dwelling house, or in any boat or vessel, or in any railroad car, or by stealing from the person in the night time, the offender may be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not exceeding seven years.”

The indictment (omitting its formal parts), charges that, at, etc., on, etc., one Straub Young, and one John Clark, then and there, in a dwelling house (to-wit, the dwelling house of a person to the grand jurors ■unknown), feloniously did steal, take, and carry away, a certain keg of beer, the property of one August Dengolensky, then and there, in said dwelling house being, against the peace and dignity of the state.

Upon a trial of the cause before a jury at the same term, the following, in substance, was the evidence in the case: That on the twenty-eighth day of August, 1885, one Straub Young and John Clark did take from an ice house one keg of beer. That said beer belonged to one August Dengolensky, and the house was the property of William Dengolensky, and was situated in [426]*426the city of Boonville. The defendants took the beer from the house in the day time, and the beer was worth three dollars and sixty-five cents. That the said ice house was made of brick, and under the ground, and that it was built originally for an ice house, but after-wards a floor was put in, leaving the part below as an ice house, and making four rooms above, without any internal communication between the rooms above and the ice house below. That there was but one way of ingress and egress to the said ice house, which was by a door upon the outside. That the occupants of the rooms above neither owned nor had any control over the ice house and beer cellar below. That said ice house and beer cellar, and the dwellings over it, were the property of and owned by William Dengoiensky, and that a part of the ice house was leased by him to one August Den-golensky, as and for a beer cellar ; and that two of the rooms over the ice house were leased by him to one of the defendants, Straub Young, who occupied the same with his family as his dwelling house at the time of the larceny charged in the indictment, and the remaining tw6 rooms were leased by him to one Florence Jackson, who lived in the same at the time. That the only entrance to the said ice house and beer cellar was from the outside of the same, and that there was no door or opening of any kind between the ice house and beer cellar and the rooms above, occupied by the defendant, Young, and Florence Jackson, and that a floor separated the same. That said ice house and beer cellar, which are one and the same, were in the possession and under the control of one William Dengoiensky, the owner thereof, and the said August Dengoiensky, the lessee of a part thereof, and that neither of them had any control or resided in the rooms over and above said ice house and cellar.

At the close of the testimony the court, over the ob[427]*427jections and exceptions of defendant, gave the following instruction for the state :

"v5 ci3. If the jury shall find from the evidence that the witness, Dengolensky, kept his beer in the basement of a house, and that said basement was also used as an ice house, and that the superstructure' over said basement was composed of four rooms, and that two families were living in those rooms, and that each family occupied different rooms, and that the only means of entering the basement, where said beer was kept, was by a cellar door, on the outside, then the jury are instructed that said basement was portion of a dwelling house, and if the defendants took the beer mentioned in evidence from said basement, then they took it from a dwelling bouse, within the meaning of the law.”

The court then refused the following instruction asked by defendants, to which defendants excepted:

“1. The jury are instructed that the defendants are indicted for larceny committed in a dwelling house,, and they are further instructed, that if they find from the evidence that Straub Young, one of the defendants,, was dwelling in and residing with his family in a portion of the house referred to in' the indictment, and that the keg of beer mentioned in said indictment was in an ice house, which formed a part of, or was connected with the dwelling house in which Young was living with his-family, and that said ice house, at the time it is charged said beer was taken, was under the control of ¥m. Dengolensky, and that there was no door or internal communication between the part in which Young was living and the ice house, then the jury cannot find the defendants guilty of the offence charged in the indictment. ’ ’

Upon the trial, as shown by the record, the defendant, Straub Young, was acquitted by the jury ; but the defendant, John Clark, was found guilty as charged in the indictment, and his punishment assessed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for three years and four [428]*428months ; and, failing to secure a stay of execution, he is now in the penitentiary, as appears ■ by the brief of the attorney general for the state. It may be well to premise that by section 1307, Revised Statutes 1879, it is provided that: “ Every person who shall be convicted of feloniously stealing, taking and carrying away any money, goods, right in action, or other personal property, or valuable thing whatsoever, of the value of thirty dollars or more, ór any horse, mare, gelding, colt, Alley} ass, mule, or neat cattle, belonging to another, shall be ■deemed guilty of grand larceny, * * By section 1308, persons convicted of grand larceny shall be punished (as the case may require) by imprisonment in the penitentiary from five to seven years. Section 1318 provides' that: “Every person who shall steal, take and ■carry away any money, or personal property, or effects ■ ■of another, under the value of thirty dollars, not being the subject of grand larceny, without regard to value, shall be deemed guilty of petit larceny, and on conviction shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by fine not exceeding one hundred dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.” And section 1319, provides that: “ If upon the ■trial of an indictment for grand larceny the evidence .shows the value of the property taken would constitute .a case of petit larceny, the defendant may be convicted ■of that offence.” It may be further' premised in the same connection, that while section 1309 does not, in ■express terms, declare that the perpetrator of “larceny in a dwelling house” shall be deemed guilty of grand larceny, yet it says that he may be punished (in like manner, that is), by imprisonment in the penitentiary not exceeding seven years; and in State v. Ramelsburg, 30 Mo. 26, the court, speaking through Scott, J., held that stealing committed in a dwelling house was grand larceny, within the meaning of a similar statute.

But the controlling, if not the only question in this [429]*429case, is whether the stealing of the keg of beer in question from the “ice house or beer cellar” in question was, under the evidence in the cause, “a larceny committed in. a dwelling house,” within the meaning of section 1309, supra, and the authorities applicable thereto. An eminent text writer (1 Wharton’s Grim. Law [8 Ed.] secs.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
89 Mo. 423, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-clark-mo-1886.