Territory v. Marks

25 Haw. 219, 1919 Haw. LEXIS 17
CourtHawaii Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 24, 1919
DocketNo. 1166
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 25 Haw. 219 (Territory v. Marks) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Hawaii Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Territory v. Marks, 25 Haw. 219, 1919 Haw. LEXIS 17 (haw 1919).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT BY

KEMP, J.

The defendants John Marks and Sebastian Reiny Avere indicted jointly for the offense of larceny in the first degree. The indictment charges that they “on the seventeenth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and eighteen did unlatviully and feloniously steal, take and carry away a certain thing of marketable, saleable, assignable and available value, to wit, one red colored steer of the value of one hundred dollars ($100) of the goods, chattels and property of the Oahu Railway & Land Company, Limited, a corporation, existing under and by virtue of the laws of the Territory of Hawaii, and did then and there and thereby commit the crime of larceny in the first degree.” At the trial both defendants were convicted of larceny in the first degree and are here upon exceptions complaining of the admission of certain evidence, of certain instructions given to the jury by the court and of the overrnling of their motion for a new trial.

Exceptions numbered 1, 2 and 3 complain of the admis[221]*221siort in evidence of certain butchers’ tools which were found by the police officer making the arrest and others under the following conditions, as shown by the evidence. By the evidence of at least two witnesses some of the tools which were admitted in evidence as exhibits were identified as the sanie tools which a short time prior to the time of their finding were in the possession of the defendant Marks. There was also evidence to the effect that on the afternoon of the day preceding the day on which the tools were found the defendant Marks was seen in the immediate vicinity of where the tools were found in a buggy in which a bulky bundle was observed covered over with a rain coat and that within a few minutes, not exceeding a half hour, after he was seen in that vicinity with the bundle in his buggy he was again seen in the same buggy with the bundle missing, only the rain coat remaining. It also appears that on the same afternoon the police officer who made the arrest, in company with other officers, saw the defendant Eeiny in the same vicinity on horseback in close proximity to the red steer, the subject of the alleged larceny, said steer being tied with his head close up to a large kukui tree, and that at said time a dog, also identified by the evidence of some of the witnesses as belonging to the defendant Eeiny, was baying the steer. It further appears that upon the following morning when the same police officer, in company with Mr. Louis D. Warren, the manager of the Honouliuli ranch, visited the place where the steer was found tied, they found the tools which have been admitted in evidence as exhibits in close proximity to the place where said steer was tied and that the same dog, observed on tlie afternoon of the previous day baying the steer, was lying upon the bundle of tools.

The particular objection of the defendants to the admission of these tools in evidence is that there was no evidence connecting the defendants or either of them with the [222]*222ownership or possession of said tools. With this contention we cannot agree. If the possession of the'tools by the defendants or either of them were a material fact, to be found by the jury the facts which we have related would be sufficient to require the submission of that issue to the jury for their determination and were certainly sufficient to authorize their reception as evidence in the case.

Exception number 4 complains of various instructions given in behalf of the. prosecution and of the refusal of the court to give various instructions requested by the defendants. Those instructions which the court refused to give at the instance of the defendants consisted of instructions defining “reasonable doubt” and “circumstantial evidence.” We shall not set out the instructions refused nor those given by the court. Some of the instructions requested and refused' were correct but their substance had already been given by the court in other instructions given at the request of the prosecution or of the defendants. Where the court has already given an instruction sufficiently covering the points covered by a requested instruction it is not error to refuse the same.

Of the instructions given at the request of the prosecution number 9 is as follows : “I further instruct you, gentlemen of the jury, that if you believe beyond a reasonable donbt from the evidence in this case that these defendants either removed the red colored steer mentioned in the indictment in this case from the property of the owner thereof with the intent to deprive the owner of the possession thereof or that the said defendants tiecl up the said steer with the intention of depriving the owner of the possession thereof and that the said steer was of the value of more than $50.00, then it is your duty to find these defendants guilty as charged.” This instruction was excepted to by the defendants and the exception is included in their bill of exceptions. This is the last instruction given at the [223]*223request of the prosecution and is a summing up of what will he sufficient to authorize a conviction of the defendants. ,No other instruction given by the court summarizes what would be sufficient to authorize the conviction of the defendants except special instruction number 4, given, at the request of the prosecution, and to which no exception was taken, said instruction number 4 being as follows: “I further charge you. that the defendants in this case are charged with the larceny of one red' colored steer of the value of one hundred dollars ($100) and if you believe beyond a reasonable doubt that these defendants or either of them did unlawfully and feloniously steal, take and carry away a red colored steer of the value of more than one hundred dollars ($100) you should find such defendant or defendants guilty as charged.” If the instruction complained of authorizes a conviction of the defendants or either of them without the prosecution having proven every element of the offense as charged then it was error to give said instruction and the exception will have to be sustained.

Our statute defines larceny as follows: “Larceny or theft is the feloniously taking anything of marketable, saleable, assignable or available value belonging to or being the property of another.” Sec. 3918 R. L. 1915. In 25 Oyc. at 10 larceny is defined as follows: “Larceny is the taking and carrying away of the mere personal goods of another with intent to steal the goods.” Various other definitions of larceny are given in the foot-note to the above text taken from text hooks and decisions of the various States, some of which we give as follows: “The fraudulent talcing and carrying away of a thing without claim of right with the intention of converting it to a use other than that of the owner.” Wharton, Crim. L., Sec. 862. “The taking and removing by trespass of personal property which the trespasser knows tó belong either generally [224]*224or specially to another with the felonious intent to deprive him of his ownership therein, and, perhaps it should be added, for the sake of some advantage to the trespasser.” 2 Bishop, Crim. L. Sec. 758. “Knowingly taking and carrying away the goods of another without any claim or pretense of right, with intent wholly to deprive the owner of them, and to appropriate or convert, them to his own use.” State v. South, 28 N. J. L. 28, 29, 74 Am. Dec. 250; Archbold Crim. L. 119 (quoted in State v. Chambers, 22 W. Va. 779, 785, 46 Am. Rep. 550 ).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
25 Haw. 219, 1919 Haw. LEXIS 17, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/territory-v-marks-haw-1919.