People v. Camp
| Citation | 139 N.Y. 87,34 N.E. 755 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. CAMP. |
| Decision Date | 03 October 1893 |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from supreme court, general term, fifth department.
Austin J. Camp was convicted under Pen. Code, § 211, of the crime of kidnapping. From a judgment of the general term (21 N. Y. Supp. 741) reversing the judgment of conviction, and discharging defendant, the people appeal. Affirmed.
KIDNAPPING.
Pen. Code, s 211, provides that one who willfully seizes, confines, inveigles, or kidnaps another, with intent to cause him, without authority of law, to be secretly confined or imprisoned within the state, is guilty of kidnapping. Held, that defendant was not guilty of such offense, where he procured an adjudication that the person alleged to have been kidnapped was insane, and, without using force, publicly conveyed her to a lunatic asylum, though she was not insane at the time. 21 N. Y. Supp. 741, affirmed.
A. P. Rich, Dist. Atty., (Louis Marshall, of counsel,) for the People.
James A. Wright, (Frank D. Wright, of counsel,) for respondent.
We think the court below could, under section 527 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, properly have reversed this conviction on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of evidence, or that justice required a new trial. But if it had reversed the conviction upon either of these grounds, or for any other crrors which could be obviated or corrected upon a new trial, instead of dis. charging the defendant, it should have ordered a new trial. Code Crim. Proc. § 543; People v. Phillips, 42 N. Y. 200. Therefore, to uphold the decision of the general term, discharging the defendant, we must be able to see in this record some fundamental obstacle to his conviction for the crime charged in the indictment.
Kidnapping was an offense at commonlaw, and consisted in the unlawful removal of a person from hisown country or state against bis will. 4 Bl. Comm. 219; 1 Rnss. Crimes, (9th Ed.) 962; 1 Whart. Crim. Law, (8th Ed.) § 590; 2 Bish. Crim. Law, (7th Ed.) § 750. In the case of adult persons, it is believed that at common law the crime of kidnapping was not complete until the person alleged to have been kidnapped was removed from his own country to another, and thus deprived of the benefit and assistance of the laws under whose protection, he lived. But, at a very early day in England, statutes were passed extending the crime to other cases, and it is now defined by statutes, it is believed, in all the states of this country;and nowhere, so far as we can discover, would the acts of the defendant, as disclosed by the evidence in this case, constitute the common-law or statutory offense of kidnapping. Now, what are the material facts of this case? Mrs. Baird, aged 29 years, was a married daughter of the defendant, living with him, separate from her husband. In August, 1890, the defendant, alleging that she was insane, went to the county judge, and stated the case to him. He designated two competent and qualified physicians to examine her, and they went to the house of the defendant, and examined her, and investigated her condition, and certified under oath that she was insane, and subsequently their certificate was approved by the judge. She knew of these proceedings, and knew that the physicians had adjudged her to be a lunatic, and that she was to be taken to the asylum. The defendant, having the certificate, took her in the daytime to the lunatic asylum at Utica, and for that purpose he used no force or violence whatever. He believed that he had the right to take her, and she, believing that she was obliged to go, voluntarily went with him, without making any resistance, or any effort to escapc. She was delivered at the asylum, and there remained, or about three weeks, when she was discharged on the ground that she was not insane. The asylum physicians and attendants believed that she was not insane at any time while she was in the asylum. Upon the trial there was a controversy as to her insanity when the certificate of the physicians was made, and as to the motive of the defendant in taking her to the asylum, and as to his belief that she was really insane at the time. We will, for the purposes now in hand,-although far from believing it,-assume that she was not insane, and that the defendant knew it, and that he used the forms of law from improper and malicious motives, and yet we are of the opinion that he did not commit the crime of...
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Doss v. State
...We have no reason to suppose that it was intended to embrace within the definition of the crime acts before innocent. People v. Camp, 139 N.Y. 87, 34 N.E. 755. its elementary sense the word 'or' is a disjunctive particle that marks an alternative, generally corresponding to 'either,' as 'ei......
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Clayton v. State
...... enforcement officers, and McCall developed that Hughes had. been threatened by nearly 50 people since the day he told. McCall the details of the flogging on June 26th. . . . . "Two. Words Play Part. . . . . ... to be looked to in aggravation of the offense. We have read. the case of People v. Camp, 139 N.Y. 87, 34 N.E. 755, from the New York Court of Appeals, but the facts in. that case differ very materially from the facts here. There a. ......
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Doss v. State
...ruling, construing a similar statute, was made in People v. Camp, 66 Hun, 531, 21 N.Y.S. 741, and affirmed by the Court of Appeals 139 N.Y. 87, 34 N.E. 755. authority, other than the statute, is deemed necessary to sustain the proposition that the forcible and secret imprisonment of one per......
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State v. White
...supported. People v. Hope, 257 N.Y. 147, 177 N.E. 402; State v. Nelson, 103 N.H. 478, 175 A.2d 814. Such authorities as People v. Camp, 139 N.Y. 87, 34 N.E. 755, relied upon by the defendant, are clearly distinguishable on their facts from the case before us and are not authority to support......