Dean v. State

• Decision Date: 25 July 1911
• Docket Number: 3,520.
• Parties: DEAN v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

71 S.E. 932

9 Ga.App. 571

DEAN v. STATE.

No. 3,520.

Court of Appeals of Georgia

July 25, 1911

Syllabus by the Court.

Where several articles are stolen at one time, there is only one larceny, whether the ownership is in one person or in different persons. The state in such case may charge in one indictment the larceny of all the articles stolen, alleging ownership according to the fact. But after the thief has been indicted and convicted of the larceny of any one of the articles the prosecution is exhausted, and he cannot subsequently be indicted for the larceny of one of the articles embraced in the same larceny, and which the state chose to omit from the former indictment.

Error from Superior Court, Decatur County; Frank Park, Judge.

Duncan Dean was convicted of larceny, and brings error. Reversed.

P. D Rich, for plaintiff in error.

W. E Wooten, Sol. Gen., and F. A. Hooper, for the State.

HILL C.J.

The single question presented in this case for the decision of the court is whether a person who at the same time and place takes, steals, and carries away with the intent to steal five cows belonging to different owners, the larceny constituting but one transaction, can be indicted in separate indictments for five separate larcenies, or whether the indictment and conviction for larceny in stealing one of the cows, the property of a designated owner, would be a bar to subsequent indictment and prosecution for the larceny of any of the other cows. In our opinion the indictment and conviction of the accused for the larceny of one of the cows under the circumstances above stated would be a bar to further prosecution for the larceny of any of the other cows stolen by him at the same time and from the same place and in the same transaction. Unquestionably the state could include in the same transaction the larceny of all five of the cows alleging different ownership and a different value as to each cow. This would constitute but one offense, covering the one transaction, and would be sustained by proof that the accused stole any of the cows as charged therein. In Lowe v State, 57 Ga. 172, it is held that an indictment for simple larceny for stealing two hogs at the same time and place, though alleging that one is the property of one person, and the other of another, covers but one transaction, and charges but one offense, and judgment thereon will not be arrested. In the case of Tippins v. State, 14 Ga. 422, it is held that while the thief may be tried in any county in which he may be found in possession of the stolen goods, a trial in one county will be a bar to a trial in another county. Mr. Bishop in his work on Criminal Law (2 Bishop's New Criminal Law, § 888) declares that "it is a plain doctrine of all our courts that, if in a single transaction more articles than one belonging to the same owner are stolen, the indictment may charge the larceny of the whole in one count. It is but one larceny. And, should the articles have different owners, most permit the allegation to be in the same way. But, whether the ownership is in one person or many, the indictment need include no more of the articles than the prosecuting power chooses." And in further discussing this subject he says: "In principle the wrong as a crime is to the public, not to the private owner. The thief ordinarily does not care, and often he does not know, whose are the things he is taking. And, though the indictment is required to set out the ownership, the purpose is simply identification of the articles. So that the state, empowered by law to elect in what form it will accuse a wrongdoer, can put all of one theft into a...