Garcia v. People

• Decision Date: 19 December 1949
• Docket Number: No. 16206,16206
• Citation: 121 Colo. 130,213 P.2d 387
• Parties: GARCIA v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 387

213 P.2d 387

121 Colo. 130

GARCIA v. PEOPLE.

No. 16206.

Supreme Court of Colorado, en Banc.

Dec. 19, 1949.

Lewis M. Perkins, Durango, Bentley M. McMullin, Denver, for plaintiff in error.

John W. Metzger, Attorney General, Joseph E. Newman, Deputy Attorney General, Raymond B. Danks, Assistant Attorney General, for defendant in error.

HAYS, Justice.

Plaintiff in error, defendant below, was convicted of larceny of 'one head of neat cattle' and was sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of not less than one year nor more than fifteen months. To review the proceedings, defendant presents the case here by writ of error.

It was charged in the information that the defendant 'did unlawfully and feloniously steal and knowingly kill and apply to his own use one head of neat cattle of the personal property, goods and chattels of some person or persons unknown contrary to the form of the statute. * * *'

The statute upon which the above information was based provides: 'Any person who shall steal, embezzle or knowingly kill, sell, drive, lead or ride away, or in any manner deprive the owner of the immediate possession of any neat cattle, horse, mule, sheep, goat, swine or ass, or any person who shall steal, embezzle or knowingly kill, sell, drive, lead or ride away, or in any manner apply to his own use any neat cattle, horse, mule, goat, sheep, ass or swine, the owner of which is unknown, or any person who shall knowingly purchase from any one not having the lawful right to sell and dispose of the same, any neat cattle, horse, mule, sheep, swine or ass, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and on conviction thereof in any court of competent jurisdiction, shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding six years, or by fine not exceeding five thousand ($5,000) dollars, at the discretion of the court.' ' 35 C.S.A. c. 160, § 33.

Prior to the filing of the above information and on December 23, 1947, defendant signed a typewritten statement afterwards introduced in evidence, reciting, inter alia:

'In the early spring of 1947 I paid one Aurelio Sanchez for a beef; we did not select the beef at that time--I was to get it later on. I paid him fifty-five dollars in cash.

'On the 14th day of December, 1947, I went to Arboles to Mr. Sanchez' ranch and picked up the beef, it was a small steer born late in the spring, brackle faced and red in the body. I butchered the calf myself, then I skinned it, I left the hide with Aurelio Sanchez; I am not certain what the brand was. I took the carcass back to Bayfield and hung it up in my shed. We have used very little of it up to now and as far as I know the beef is still hanging in my shed.'

Being unable to 'produce the hide' of the steer, and the above explanation of the disposition thereof by the defendant not being, in the opinion of the prosecuting officials, a 'true explanation' thereof, the defendant was charged with, and convicted of, grand larceny of neat cattle as hereinabove mentioned. Aside from the admission of the defendant that he had butchered the calf and failed to produce the hide thereof, the prosecution relied almost entirely upon the prima facie evidence created by the following statute: 'In the prosecution of any person charged with the larceny of any neat cattle the ownership of which is alleged to be unknown, proof of the failure, neglect or refusal of any person or persons who has butchered any neat animal as herein provided to produce a hide or, in lieu thereof, to give a true explanation as to the disposition made of the hide and to inform said officer or officers making demand where such hide is at the time of request for exhibition, shall be prima facie evidence of the guilt of such person or persons of the larceny of neat animal, and in all prosecutions for the larceny of neat cattle, the owner being unknown, it shall not be necessary in order to convict the defendant or defendants for the people to prove motive, intent or purpose on the part of the accused or to identify the meat with the said animal or animals alleged to be stolen or to prove that any specific animal of any owner, unknown or otherwise, has been lost.' ' 35 C.S.A. c. 160, § 39.

In harmony with the provisions of the section above quoted, the trial court instructed the jury in part, as follows:

'6. The Court instructs the jury that if you believe from all the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that on or about December 14, 1947, the defendant did butcher an animal and did thereafter fail to produce the hide, or in lieu thereof give a true explanation as to the disposition made of the hide and to inform the officers making demand where such hide was at the time of request for its exhibition, such shall be prima facie evidence of the guilt of the defendant of larceny of neat animal.

'And the Court further instructs the jury that if you believe beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about the 14th day of December, 1947, the defendant did butcher an animal and did thereafter fail to produce the hide, or in lieu thereof give a true explanation as to the disposition made of the hide and to inform the officers making demand where such hide was at the time of request for its exhibition, and that the owner of said animal is unknown, it shall not be necessary in order to convict the defendant for the People to prove motive, or purpose, or to otherwise prove intent on the part of the accused, or to prove that any specific animal of any owner unknown or otherwise has been lost.

'7. The Court instructs the Jury that 'prima facie' evidence means evidence which is sufficient to establish the fact unless rebutted; evidence which, standing alone and unexplained, would maintain the proposition and warrant the conclusion to support which it is introduced.'

The principal point specified as ground for reversal is that section 39 is void in that it is violative of the due process clause of the Constitution.

At the outset it should be observed that there is no law of Colorado which makes it unlawful to butcher a neat animal and none which makes it unlawful to dispose of the hide of the animal. The statute here considered makes the commission of the two above-mentioned lawful acts, prima facie evidence of guilt of the crime of larceny. In other words, if the statute is valid, it is not necessary for conviction for the people to prove 'unlawful intent or purpose;' 'identify the meat with the * * * animal [alleged to be] * * * stolen'; 'prove that any specific animal of any owner, unknown or otherwise, has been lost'; or prove as alleged in the information that defendant did 'unlawfully and feloniously steal' the calf; or that he did 'knowingly kill' it and apply same 'to his own use.' In short, the people were not required to prove the corpus delicti, which, in a larceny case, consists of two elements: '(1) that the property was lost by the owner; and (2) that it was lost by a felonious taking.' 32 Am.Jur. 1033, § 121; Woods v. People, 111 Colo. 448, 142 P.2d 386.

Legislative right to declare that the proof of one fact shall be presumptive or prima facie evidence of another is no longer open to serious dispute in this jurisdiction or elsewhere. Robertson v. People, 20 Colo. 279, 38 P. 326; Roberts v. People, 78 Colo. 555, 243 P. 544; 20 Am.Jur. p. 39, Evidence, § 9; State v. Kelly, 218 Minn. 247, 15 N.W.2d 554, 162 A.L.R. 477; Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 63 S.Ct. 1241, 87 L.Ed. 1519; State v. Grimmett, 33 Idaho, 203, 193 P. 380; Also, annotations 51 A.L.R. 1139, 86 A.L.R. 179, 162 A.L.R. 495.

It also may be said, in the light of the foregoing authorities, that the power vested in legislature to create such presumptions is subject to the qualification that there must be some rational connection or reasonable relation between the fact proved and the ultimate fact to be established; also such power is subject to the further limitation that the presumption cannot be made a conclusive one. 20 Am.Jur. 41, Evidence, § 10; 12 Am.Jur., Const. Law, 316, § 624. In Robertson v. People, supra, we considered both the power of the legislature and the limitation thereon as shown by the following exerpt from the opinion, quoted from Board of Com'rs of Excise of Auburn v. Merchant, 103 N.Y. 143, 148, 8 N.E. 484, 57 Am.Rep. 705: "The general power of the legislature to prescribe rules of evidence and methods of proof is undoubted. While the power has its constitutional limitations, it is not easy to define precisely what they are. A law which would practically shut out the evidence of a party, and thus deny him the opportunity for a trial, would substantially deprive him of due process of law. It would not be possible to uphold a law which made an act prima facie evidence of crime, over which the party charged had no control, and with which he had no connection, or which made that prima facie evidence of crime which had no relation to a criminal act, and no tendency whatever, by itself, to prove a criminal act. * * *" [20 Colo. 279, 38 P. 330.]

The leading case upon the questions here considered is Tot v. U. S., supra. In that case, the statute involved made the possession of firearms by a person having been previously convicted of a crime of violence, presumptive evidence that such firearms were transported in interstate commerce. It was there held that there was no rational connection in either reason or experience between the possession of firearms, being the fact proved, and the transportation thereof in interstate commerce, being the ultimate fact presumed, and because thereof the statute was invalid. In passing upon the question, Mr. Justice Roberts, who delivered the opinion of the court, stated [319 U.S. 463, 63 S.Ct. 1244]:

'Proof of some sort on the part of the prosecutor is requisite to a finding of guilt; it may consist of testimony of those who witnessed the defendant's conduct. Although the Government may be unable to produce testimony of eye witnesses to the conduct on which...