Brown v. People

• Decision Date: 23 April 1874
• Citation: 29 Mich. 232
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Herbert Brown v. The People; And Charles Libby v. The People

29 Mich. 232

Herbert Brown v. The People; And Charles Libby v. The People

Supreme Court of Michigan

April 23, 1874

Heard April 22, 1874

Error to Recorder's Court of Detroit.

Information for larceny. Defendant brings error. Conviction affirmed.

Judgment of the recorder's court affirmed.

J. H Pound and F. A. Baker, for plaintiffs in error.

Isaac Marston, Attorney General, for the People.

Christiancy J. Campbell and Cooley, JJ., concurred. Graves, Ch. J., did not sit in this case.

OPINION

Christiancy, J.

These were two separate cases in the recorder's court for the city of Detroit, in each of which the defendant below (plaintiff in error) was, upon an information filed by the prosecuting attorney, convicted of the offense of larceny, and sentenced to the State prison; and each is brought to this court by writ of error. The errors assigned in each case relate to the question of the sufficiency of the description of the property alleged to be stolen.

In the information against Brown the charge is, for that the defendant did "feloniously steal, take and carry away, of the personal property, goods and chattels of Henry Rode, from the possession of him, the said Henry Rode, there being found, fifty dollars in money, of the value of fifty dollars, contrary to the statute, etc." In the case of Libby the charge is in the same form, for stealing of the property of Bruno Rappel, "one hundred and twenty-five dollars in money, of the value of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and one pocket book of the value of ten cents."

It is quite clear that this general form of charging the larceny of money would not have been good according to the general current of authority in an indictment at common law, without alleging the inability of the grand jury to give a more specific description.-- Merwin v. The People, 26 Mich. 298; and even in such case it could only be sustained by proof of the larceny of coin or something else, which, by the laws of the land, was made a legal tender as money.

But our statute (Laws of 1855, p. 141, § 15; Comp. L., § 7930), enacts: "In any prosecution for larceny or robbery of the money, bank notes, or promissory notes, or bills of exchange of any person, it shall be sufficient to allege generally in the indictment, a larceny or robbery of money; and it shall be sufficient to maintain the charge in the indictment, that any money, bank notes, promissory notes, or bills of exchange, were stolen or obtained by robbery."

It is insisted, however, by the counsel for the plaintiff in error, and this is the special ground upon which he relies for a reversal, that this statute is in direct violation of section 28, Article VI, of our State constitution, which provides that "in every criminal prosecution, the accused * * * shall be informed of the nature of the accusation."

While I cannot go the length to which I understand the counsel for the plaintiff in error to push his argument, that under this provision of the constitution it would be incompetent for the Legislature to alter in any respect the common-law form of charging an offense, I concede that it would not be competent for the Legislature to authorize any form of charging an offense, which should not inform him substantially of the nature and character of the particular offense intended to be proved against him, so as to give him fair notice of what he is to defend against, and an opportunity to procure his testimony in defense of the charge, that he may not be taken by surprise upon the trial. And for the purposes of this case it may be assumed that it would not be competent for the Legislature to authorize a form of charging the offense which would give the defendant less real and substantial information of the nature of the offense than was indispensable in an indictment at common law, which, as a general rule, would doubtless be true, though I am not prepared to lay this down as a universal, rule applicable to all cases, nor, on the other hand, to hold that the description of the nature of the offense charged, recognized as sufficient at common law, would in all cases be sufficient under this provision of the constitution. There may or may not be good reasons for exceptions to such a general rule in particular cases; but the particularity in describing the property stolen required at common law in cases of larceny, was required for several other purposes besides that of informing the defendant of the nature of the evidence intended to be produced against him, and enabling him to prepare for meeting it (Merwin v. The People, 26 Mich. 298); while this constitutional provision aims at this object only, and requires no particularity of description or specification for any other purpose, though, doubtless, almost anything which tends fairly to give the defendant the necessary information tends also, more or less, to...