Bodee v. State
| Decision Date | 20 November 1894 |
| Citation | 30 A. 681,57 N.J.L. 140 |
| Parties | BODEE et al. v. STATE. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error to court of quarter sessions, Monmouth county; Conover, Higgins, and Bennett, Judges.
Annie Bodee and Fannie Bodee were convicted of larceny, and bring error. Affirmed.
Mr. Swartz and F. Parker, for plaintiffs in error.
Charles B. Ivins and A. EL Johnston, for the State.
The defendants below, Annie Bodee and Fannie Bodee, were jointly indicted for stealing the coal of David A. Statesir, at Freehold, on January 31, 1893. The substance of the accusation was that they had stolen the coal which dropped along the railroad track while being shoveled from a car into a wagon, and the defense was that the coal taken did not belong to the complainant, and that coal so dropped was abandoned by its owner, or at least the defendants believed it was. On the trial in the Monmouth sessions exceptions were sealed, on which the defendants now rely for the reversal of their conviction.
The first exception is to the admission of testimony on the part of the state that the complainant had, on the day before the alleged larceny, caused Elizabeth Bodee, the daughter of one defendant and sister of the other, to be arrested for picking up his coal in the same locality. This testimony, coupled as it was with evidence that the defendant Fannie, before committing the alleged offense, knew of Elizabeth's arrest, and the reason for it, was competent to disprove the existence of any belief on Fannie's part that the complainant had abandoned his coal. The ground on which the defendants based their objection to this testimony—that the transaction was covered by another indictment—manifestly could not detract from the force of the facts as notice to the defendants. State v. Raymond, 53 N. J. Law, 260, 265, 21 Atl. 328.
Several exceptions were taken to the exclusion of testimony offered by the defendants to show the practice of owners of coal on the one hand and of poor people on the other with regard to gathering up the coal dropped in unloading cars. This testimony was legitimate on the questions whether the owners had abandoned such coal, and whether others who picked it up believed it was abandoned; and the exclusion of the testimony would have called for a reversal of this conviction, had it not appeared on the trial as an undisputed fact, proven by the defendants themselves, that they knew the complainant, before and at the time of the alleged larceny, was insisting on his right to his coal. With this knowledge it was impossible for them to sustain a defense on the theory that they believed the complainant had abandoned his coal. The exclusion of the testimony could not have prejudiced the defendants in maintaining their defense upon the merits, and therefore will...
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State v. Tipton
...and with the fraudulent intent to convert the property to the use of the taker and to deprive the owner thereof permanently. Bodee v. State, 57 N. J. L. 140; State v. Slingerland, 19 Nev. 135; State v. Shepherd, 63 Kan. 545; State v. Yates, 159 Mo. 525; State v. Speritus, 191 Mo. loc. cit. ......
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State v. Rader
... ... coupled with words charging the taking as being without the ... owner's consent and with the fraudulent intent to convert ... the property to the use of the taker and to deprive the owner ... thereof permanently. [262 Mo. 135] [ Bodee v. State, ... 57 N.J.L. 140, 30 A. 681; State v. Slingerland, 19 ... Nev. 135, 7 P. 280; State v. Shepherd, 63 Kan. 545, ... 66 P. 236; State v. Yates, 159 Mo. 525, 60 S.W ... 1051; State v. Speritus, 191 Mo. 24; 35 Cyc. 148, ... and cases cited.] ... III ... ...
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Morissette v. United States
...whether the property had been abandoned. But such a trespass is not conclusive on the question of a wrongful taking. In Bodee et al. v. State, 57 N.J.L. 140, 30 A. 681, where the accused was charged with stealing coal from a railroad right-of-way and his defense was that he thought the coal......
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The State v. Tipton
...and with the fraudulent intent to convert the property to the use of the taker and to deprive the owner thereof permanently. [Bodee v. State, 57 N. J. L. 140; State Slingerland, 19 Nev. 135; State v. Shepherd, 63 Kan. 545; State v. Yates, 159 Mo. 525; State v. Speritus, 191 Mo. l. c. 36; 35......