Durant v. People

• Decision Date: 08 July 1865
• Citation: 13 Mich. 351
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Anne Durant v. The People

13 Mich. 351

Anne Durant v. The People

Supreme Court of Michigan

July 8, 1865

Heard May 9, 1865

Error to the recorder's court of Detroit.

The facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion.

New trial granted.

J Logan Chipman, for plaintiff in error.

Albert Williams, attorney-general, and G. V. N. Lothrop, for the people.

OPINION

Christiancy J.:

Plaintiff in error was tried in the recorder's court of the city of Detroit upon a charge of receiving certain stolen goods, the property of one Blodgett, knowing the same to have been feloniously stolen, etc.

The prosecution introduced evidence tending to show that the goods had been stolen by her brother, James Durant, who had been arrested a few days before the arrest of defendant, and imprisoned in the Wayne county jail; that these goods, with a considerable amount of other stolen property, were found in certain trunks in defendant's house, no person being at the time in the house but the defendant and one Thomas Kearney; that there were five of the trunks, four of which at the time of the search and her arrest, she said belonged to her brother, and one she did not know who owned; that she stated the trunks were brought to her house the night before, and that she did not know who brought them; that she claimed to know nothing of the stolen property, stating that James Durant did not live with her (and it does not appear that he did), and that she had not seen him for a long time before her arrest.

The defendant introduced Thomas Kearney as a witness, who stated that he was at the house of the defendant when she was arrested and the trunks searched; that he had been a frequent visitor at her house for several years; that he never saw the trunks there until the evening before she was arrested; that he did not know how they came there, but that he knew her brother James Durant, and, after his imprisonment in Wayne county jail, and a few days before her arrest, he was present at an interview at the jail between the defendant and her brother, and heard a conversation between them. The witness was then asked by defendant's counsel what was said by said James Durant to the defendant at the jail in regard to sending his trunks to her house. This was objected to by the prosecution as incompetent. The counsel for the defendant stated his object was to show that, in said conversation, James Durant asked defendant to permit him to send his trunks to her house for safe keeping, representing them to contain his personal baggage. The court held the question incompetent, and excluded the evidence.

We think this ruling was erroneous. The defendant was not charged with larceny of the goods, and her possession could not be used as evidence tending to show that she had stolen them. Her possession must be regarded as innocent, unless shown to have been received with knowledge that they were stolen, or under circumstances which would satisfy the jury that she believed them to be stolen. Possession itself without evidence tending to show such guilty knowledge, could have no tendency to establish her guilt. She did not, in fact, undertake to deny the possession, but admitting it, claimed she had come to the possession innocently, without notice that the goods were stolen. In the aspect the case had assumed when this question was proposed to the witness, guilty knowledge was practically the only question in dispute. But independent of the particular aspect the case had assumed upon the evidence, we think, in all prosecutions for this offense, it must, upon principle, be competent alike both for the prosecution and the defense to show what were the actual circumstances, the arrangement or understanding under which the goods were received by the defendant, whether the effect shall be to establish guilt or innocence. This is the res gestoe, the very essence of the inquiry. The counsel for the prosecution admit that she would have had the right to show that the trunks were in fact sent to her house, that they were her brother's, etc.; but without proof of...