Lipsey v. People

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: HAND
• Citation: Lipsey v. People , 227 Ill. 364, 81 N.E. 348 (Ill. 1907)
• Decision Date: 05 June 1907
• Parties: LIPSEY v. PEOPLE.

227 Ill. 364

81 N.E. 348

LIPSEY

v.PEOPLE.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 18, 1907.

Rehearing Denied June 5, 1907.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; M. W. Pinckney, Judge.

Ralph Lipsey was convicted of receiving stolen goods, and brings error. Affirmed.

Joseph B. David and Edward Sonnenschein, for plaintiff in error.

W. H. Stead, Atty. Gen., and John J. Healy, State's Atty. (James J. Barbour, of counsel), for the People.

HAND, J.

The grand jury on the 24th day of January, 1906, returned into the criminal court of Cook county an indictment charging Ralph Lipsey, the plaintiff in error, with the offense of buying, receiving, and aiding in concealing stolen property, knowing the same to be stolen, in manner following; that is to say: ‘One Ralph Lipsey, late of, * * * on the second day of September, 1905, in the county of Cook, * * * feloniously, unlawfully and unjustly, for his own gain and to prevent the owner from again possessing its property, did buy, receive and aid in concealing two thousand light sockets, of the value of sixteen and one-half cents each, of the goods and chattels of the Electric Appliance Company, the same being a corporation, * * * then lately before feloniously stolen and carried away from the said Electric Appliance Company, the same being a corporation organized as aforesaid, by a certain evil disposed person or persons, the said Ralph Lipsey then and there well knowing the said goods to have been feloniously stolen, taken and carried away, contrary to the statute. * * *’ A trial was had at the February term of said court, which resulted in the conviction of the plaintiff in error and his sentence to the penitentiary, and he has sued out a writ of error from this court to reverse said judgment of conviction.

It is first contended the evidence was not sufficient upon which to convict the plaintiff in error of the crime with which he was charged.

It appears from the evidence that the Electric Appliance Company in the fall of 1905 was located at the corner of Jackson Boulevard and Des Plaines street, in the city of Chicago, and was dealing in electric supplies; that in the month of October it purchased 19,000 Bryant & Perkins electric light sockets from the Perkins Electric Switch Manufacturing Company, which were packed in boxes, of 500 in a box; that the boxes were numbered and were marked with the letters, ‘E. A. Co.,’ at the time they were delivered to the Electric Appliance Company; that prior to the month of October said Electric Appliance Company had in its employ one Arthur Dietrichstein; that during the months of October and November, and after the said Dietrichstein had left the employ of the Electric Appliance Company, Dietrichstein caused a boy in the employ of the Electric Appliance Company by the name of Leonard Graham to deliver to a drayman who did hauling for the Electric Appliance Company at one time one box of electric light sockets and at another time four boxes of electric light sockets, with instructions to direct the drayman to deliver said boxes to the Great Northern Metal Company, whose place of business was located at 61 West Van Buren street, in the city of Chicago, of which company the plaintiff in error was president; that each delivery was accompanied by a letter from Arthur Dietrichstein to the Great Northern Metal Company; that at the time the first box was taken to the business place of the Great Northern Metal Company the plaintiff in error was present and received the box and letter from the drayman; that at the time the four boxes were taken to the business place of the Great Northern Metal Company the plaintiff in error was not present, and a man who was standing in the door of the business place of the Great Northern Metal Company with Arthur Dietrichstein directed the drayman not to unload the boxes at that place and to take them to the business place of the Guarantee Electric Company, on Adams street, in the city of Chicago, where they were delivered by the drayman; that a day or two before the 22d day of October, 1905, which was the day upon which the four boxes for electric light sockets were delivered to the drayman by Graham, Mr. Frank, who was the manager of the Guarantee Electric Company, called up the Great Northern Metal Company and asked the plaintiff in error if he had any more sockets, and stated that he was running short and needed more, and he also testified the plaintiff in error replied he would let him know later whether he had any more he could get for him; that on the 2d of November he was working in the basement of the place of business of the Guarantee Electric Company, and when he came upstairs there were four boxes of electric light sockets on the floor and a bill on his desk for 2000 sockets, covering the four boxes which were delivered that day; that the bill was paid the next day to the plaintiff in error, who receipted the same as the president of the Great Northern Metal Company; that two of the boxes of electric light sockets so received from the Great Northern Metal Company were sold by the Guarantee Electric Company, and that the two remaining boxes were delivered by the Guarantee Electric Company to the Electric Appliance Company, and were identified by Frank as the two boxes of electric light sockets then in the courtroom; that one box had on it ‘No. 12,806, Perkins, Chicago, E. A. Co. 9386, 500,’ and the other, ‘No. 12,781, Perkins, Chicago, E. A. Co. 9386, 500,’ and said boxes were identified as boxes containing electric light sockets which were a part of the 19,000 invoice of electric light sockets received by the Electric Appliance Company from the Perkins Electric Switch Manufacturing Company in October, 1905. Arthur Dietrichstein paid to Leonard Graham $11 for his share of the proceeds of the four boxes the day after they were delivered to the drayman.

The evidence leaves no doubt in the unbiased mind but the five boxes of electric light sockets abstracted from the business place of the Electric Appliance Company were stolen by Arthur Dietrichstein and delivered, throught Graham and the drayman, to the Great Northern Metal Company, of which the plaintiff in error was president. The first box was delivered to the plaintiff in error in person, and four boxes were delivered to the Guarantee Electric Company upon the order of a person at the business place of the Great Northern Metal Company, in pursuance of an arrangement made before that time by the plaintiff in error with Mr. Frank, of the Guarantee Electric Company, and a bill was rendered by the Great Northern Metal Company to the Guarantee Electric Company therefor, and the plaintiff in error received the price thereof and receipted the bill therefor to the Guarantee Electric Company. In view of the foregoing facts the question arises: Did the plaintiff in error have knowledge that said electric light sockets were stolen at the time they were delivered to him or to his corporation, and did he receive them with felonious intent of preventing the owner from again possessing itself of its property and for his own gain? Arthur Dietrichstein, who stole the four boxes of electric light sockets, was at the business place of the Great Northern Metal Company when the boxes arrived at that place in charge of the drayman, and was seen in company with the man at that place who ordered the goods to be delivered to the Guarantee Electric Company. The Great Northern Metal Company was a second-hand dealer. The electric light sockets in question were new and in the original and unbroken packages. The retail price of new electric light sockets similar in kind to those delivered by the Great Northern Metal Company to the Guarantee Electric Company were worth at retail, by the box of 500, 16 1/2 cents each. The four boxes, of 500 electric light sockets each, delivered by the Great Northern Metal Company to the Guarantee Electric Company, were sold to the Guarantee Electric Company for 10 1/2 cents each. The attorney for the Electric Appliance Company and two police officers called upon the plaintiff in error at the place of business of the Great Northern Metal Company and inquired whether he had sold the Guarantee Electric Company electric light sockets. He said he had, and, when inquired of by them as to where he bought them, he said he had purchased them of a man by the name of Hamilton, who lived in St. Louis, Mo. He afterwards claimed he had purchased them in part from a Chicago dealer by the name of Meyer, but denied he had purchased any electric light sockets from Arthur Dietrichstein. The evidence showed, without contradiction, that the Great Northern Metal Company obtained through Arthur Dietrichstein the 2,000 sockets which it delivered to the Guarantee Electric Company on November 2d. Hamilton was not known to the trade, and the plaintiff in error could not or would not give the name of the firm he represented in St. Louis or his post-office address, and Meyer testified he never sold the plaintiff in error or his corporation any electric light sockets. The effect of causing the delivery of the four boxes of electric light sockets stolen by Arthur Dietrichstein on the 2d day of November to be made to the Guarantee Electric Company was clearly done with the intent to prevent the Electric Appliance Company from again possessing itself of said boxes of electric light sockets, and it had the effect to deprive said Electric Appliance Company of the permanent possession of two of said boxes, and, while the money received for the four boxes was receipted for by the plaintiff in error in the name of the Great Northern Electric Company, by himself as president, he was the president of said company and presumably a stockholder therein, and thus received for his own gain the price, or a part thereof, which was paid to him for said four boxes of electric light sockets by the Guarantee Electric Company. The plaintiff in error introduced no evidence, other...