State v. Reid

28 S.W. 172, 125 Mo. 43, 1894 Mo. LEXIS 364
Supreme Court of Missouri·Decided November 20, 1894·Published·Cited by 28 cases

Opinion

Gantt, P. J.

This is an appeal by the state from the judgment of the circuit court of Olay county, sustaining a demurrer to an indictment in which said defendant is charged, as president of the Western Trust and Saving Association, a corporation duly organized under the laws of the state of Missouri, the same being a.banking institution doing business in said county and state, with feloniously assenting to receiving a certain deposit of money to wit, $51.75, the money and property of Alexander C. Gibson on deposit in said Western Trust and Saving Association when said institution was in failing' circumstances. The indictment is brought for a violation of section 3581, Revised Statutes, 1889.

The demurrer raises the question whether trust companies and the officers of such companies are embraced within the provisions of section 3581. The learned circuit judge, upon hearing the argument upon this question, held that trust companies were not embraced within the provisions of said section; but, further held, that it did not sufficiently appear upon the face of the indictment that the Western Trust and Saving Association was a trust company organized under article 11 of the Revised Statutes, and not a bank organized under article 9, stating, at the same [47] time, that if it should appear from the evidence upon the trial that said Western Trust and Saving Association was a company organized under article 11 of the Eevised Statutes, he would sustain a demurrer to the evidence. Thereupon, the prosecuting attorney and the counsel for defendant entered into the stipulations copied into the record, agreeing that it was so organized, and the learned judge then sustained the demurrer to the indictment. The correctness of this ruling is the only question presented by this appeal.

I. For the purposes of this appeal we shall treat the record as if the stipulation constituted .a part of the indictment, and it will be unnecessary to determine whether,' without this agreement, it sufficiently appears from the face of the indictment that the Western Trust and Saving Association was a trust company organized under article 11 of Eevised Statutes of 1889, a most interesting question, in view of our statutes requiring that every corporation organized under the laws of this state shall designate in its name ancl title, the nature and character of the business in which it proposes to engage.

The Western Trust and Saving Association was a trust company organized under article 11 of the Eevised Statutes of 1889, and the defendant was its president at the time of the acts complained of, to wit, receiving a deposit of Alexander Gibson, knowing at the time said association was in failing circumstances, and the question arises are the officers of trust companies organized under said article 11, Eevised Statutes, 1889, embraced within the provisions of section 3581 % If they are, the judgment must be reversed; if not, it must be affirmed.

Prior to the enactment of the statute by the legislature in 1877, for the purpose of enforcing section 27 of article 12 of the constitution of Missouri, 1875, [48] session acts 1877, page 239, afterwards incorporated into the revision of 1879, as section 1350, the directors or officers of an incorporated bank were not held criminally liable for receiving deposits, knowing such bank was insolvent or in failing circumstances.

The constitution and the statute in terms applied only to officers of ba/nking institutions. Although there were at that time many other corporations in existence in this state, banking corporations alone were mentioned in the constitution and the statute.

A familiar rule of construction of criminal statutes is that they should be strictly construed and not extended or enlarged by judicial construction, so as to embrace offenses and persons not plainly within their terms. State v. Bryant, 90 Mo. 534; Sedgwick on Construction of Statutory and Constitutional Law [2 Ed.], 280; Fusz v. Spaunhorst, 67 Mo. 256; Kritzer v. Woodson, 19 Mo. 327; Howell v. Stewart, 54 Mo. 400; United States v. Morris, 14 Peters, 464; Bishop on Statutory Crimes [2 Ed.], secs. 196, 227. The reason of the rule is found in the tenderness of the law for individuals, and on the plain principle that the power of punishment is vested in the legislature and not in the jndicial depai’tment.

It is the duty of the legislature and not the courts, to define a crime and ordain its punishment. “If we had the power of legislation,” says Lord Kenyon, applying the penalties for nonresidence, “perhaps we should think it proper to extend the penalties created by the statute of Henry VIII, chapter 13, to'all. benefices with cure of souls; but as it is our duty to expound and not to make acts of parliament,- we must not extend a penal law to other cases than those intended by the legislature, even though we think they come within 'the mischief intended to be remedied.” Jenkinson v. Thomas, 4 Term Reports, 666(cited in Sedgwick on Con[49] struction of Statutory and Constitutional Law [2 Ed.], p. 281); United States v. Clayton, 2 Dill. (C. C.) 219.

The act of 1877 was construed by this court in State v. Kelsey, 89 Mo. 623, and held to apply only to incorporated banks and not to private bankers.

It is apparent at a glance that when section 3581 was first enacted in 1877, it was not then intended to apply to trust companies because the act providing for the incorporation of trust companies in this state was first enacted in 1885. Session Acts of 1885, p. 103.

Since the decision in State v. Kelsey, 89 Mo. 623, was promulgated, the act of 1877, or section 1350 of Revision of 1879, has been amended so as to include private bankers. Session Acts, 1887, p. 162. State v. Buck, 108 Mo. 628; State v. Buck, 25 S. W. Rep. 573. As the Western Trust and Saving Association is an incorporated company, this amendment can not affect the liability of its officers.

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State v. Reid, 28 S.W. 172, 125 Mo. 43, 1894 Mo. LEXIS 364 (Mo. 1894).

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