Truslow v. State

31 S.W. 987, 95 Tenn. 189
Tennessee Supreme Court·Decided June 21, 1895·Published·Cited by 13 cases

Opinion

McAlister, J.

The plaintiff in error was convicted in the Circuit Court of Carroll County of the larceny of two United States bonds of the denomination of $ 1,00.0 each, the property of Mrs. Mary Johnson. The jury assessed his punishment at confinement in the State prison for a term of three years. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment having been overruled, the prisoner appealed to this Court. The record discloses that in 1888, [191] upon the organization of the Bank of Carroll at Huntingdon, the said R. F. Truslow was elected its cashier, and continued to occupy that position until October, 1893, when the bank failed and went into liquidation. In 1888, shortly after the organization of the bank, one J. W. Mebane, father of Mrs. Mary Johnson, deposited with R. F. Truslow, cashier, for safe keeping at said bank, two four per cent. United States bonds of. the denomination of one thousand dollars each, with interest coupons attached, payable quarterly. These bonds were the property of his daughter, Mary Mebane, who has since intermarried with Clarence Johnson. Truslow received the bonds and deposited them in a drawer in the bank safe, which he labeled ‘‘ Mary Mebane, ’ ’ and at a subsequent time he delivered the key to the drawer to J. W. Mebane. This key was turned over by J. W. Mebane to his daughter. It appears that for the two succeeding years J. W. Mebane, for his daughter, collected the coupons quarterly upon their maturity. This witness stated, ‘ ‘ When I would go after the money due on the coupons, I would take the key and hand it to Truslow, and he would go to the safe and bring me back the money on the coupons.” After the marriage of the said Mary Mebane to Clarence Johnson, the coupons were collected either by the said Mary or her husband. In 1891 the Bank of Carroll becoming ' indebted to the First National Bank of Nashville in the sum of $1,500 on account of overdrafts, and being pressed [192] for security, the said Truslow, to use his own language, £ ‘ either prized open the Mebane drawer, or with another key unlocked it,” and, removing one of the bonds, forwarded it to the Nashville bank as collateral security. Additional security being still demanded, Truslow, on the eleventh of May, 1891, removed from the drawer the remaining bond, and likewise pledged it with the First National Bank of Nashville. This removal and hypothecation- of the bonds was without the knowledge or consent of the owner, the said Mary Johnson. It appears that, after the removal of the bonds, Johnson and wife continued to collect the interest coupons quarterly up to the date of the assignment by the bank in October, 1893. Clarence Johnson testified that he did not go to the safe to get the coupons, but woxxld hand the key to the defendant, Truslow, at the bank counter, and he would go to the safe, in the back of the bank, and would come back to the counter, pay witness the money, and hand him back the key to the drawer. It thus appears that the defendant kept up the pretense of unlocking the drawer and clipping the coupons from the bonds for over two years after he had secretly and fraudulently removed them. It further appears that, on the eleventh of September, 1893, only a short time before the failure of the Bank of Carroll, Truslow, in the name of his bank, executed a renewal note to the First National Bank of Nashville for the sum of two thousand dollars, and pledged said bonds as security, with an [193] express power of sale in the face of the note, upon the nonpayment of the bonds at maturity. The Bank of Carroll, on the- second of October, 1893, made a general assignment for the benefit of creditors. The note for $2,000 due the Nashville bank ivas not paid, and in January, 1894, the bonds Avere sold, and were thus wholly lost to the owner.

It appears that, after the assignment, the trustee sent to TrusloAv for the combination to the lock, in order to enable the former to open the safe. Trus-Ioav sent some figures which did not disclose the combination, and the assignee was compelled to communicate with the manufacturers in order to learn it. When the safe was opened, Clarence Johnson was present, and, upon an examination of the Mebane drawer, learned for the first time that the bonds had been abstracted. In the meantime, the defendant had become a fugitLe, and was traA'eling about in disguise under an assumed name. After absenting himself three or four months, he voluntarily returned to his home, when he was arrested, indicted, and eomdeted, as already stated.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Truslow v. State, 31 S.W. 987, 95 Tenn. 189 (Tenn. 1895).

31 S.W. 987 (Truslow v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Sikes v. Tidwell
622 S.W.2d 548 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1981)
State v. Womack
591 S.W.2d 437 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1979)
Putinski v. State
161 A.2d 117 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1960)
McMahan v. Tucker
216 S.W.2d 356 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1948)
Holliston Mills of Tennessee v. McGuffin
145 S.W.2d 1 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1940)
State ex rel. Kropf v. Gilbert
251 N.W. 478 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1933)
Ferguson v. State
61 S.W.2d 467 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1933)
Conlee v. Taylor
285 S.W. 35 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1926)
Goodwin v. State
148 Tenn. 682 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1923)
Jenkins v. State
58 Fla. 62 (Supreme Court of Florida, 1909)
Union Railway Co. v. Hunton
114 Tenn. 609 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1905)