Boody v. People

• Decision Date: 11 February 1880
• Citation: 4 N.W. 549,43 Mich. 34
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: BOODY v. THE PEOPLE.

4 N.W. 549

43 Mich. 34

BOODY v. THE PEOPLE.

Supreme Court of Michigan

February 11, 1880

There is under our statute no subdivision of the crime of larceny into "grand" and "petty." Upon an information for stealing a horse, harness and buggy, the prisoner pleaded guilty. Information, plea and judgment recited the offence as grand larceny, as did also the commitment to state prison. He was sentenced on his plea to six years in the state prison. Held, that the sentence was erroneous as well as excessive, and prisoner should be discharged. A case can be brought within the statute as to horse stealing only upon the clearest averments. Excessive sentence can be sustained for all within the excess only in a case where there is no other reason for reversal.

Error to Eaton.

John M Corbin, for plaintiff in error.

Otto Kirchner, for the people.

CAMPBELL J.

Boody was informed against in the circuit court, for the county of Eaton, for stealing "one dark brown mare, seven years of age, of the value of $75, one single harness of the value of $15, and one double-seated one-horse buggy of the value of $35." When arraigned he pleaded guilty. The information and plea were both entitled as in a case of "grand larceny." The judgment recites that the respondent on his plea of guilty was duly convicted of the crime of grand larceny, and so does the commitment warrant to state prison. Upon this conviction the judge sentenced him to six years in the state prison at Jackson. Error is brought on this judgment as not authorized by law. There has never been in this state any crime known under the name of "grand larceny." The division of punishments under our statutes would probably include within the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, and exclude from that of the circuit court some cases which would have been grand larceny at common law as being of more than the value of twelve pence. With us there has been no subdivision of simple larceny into divisions of grand and petty larceny, and the measure of jurisdiction over the smaller offences has shifted from $7 up to $100, and is now fixed at $25. It is certainly opon to some doubt how far such a conviction would maintain a sentence for the higher grade of larceny. But the defects in the record render this unimportant.

The information cannot be maintained as one for horse stealing under the law of 1877, (Laws 1877, p. 80,) entitled "An act to provide for the prevention and punishment of horse stealing," because the count under which respondent is charged is an ordinary charge of larceny, and includes other property as well as a mare. No case can be brought within this singular statute, which places horse stealing above homicide in its minimum...