People v. Crane
| Decision Date | 21 April 1934 |
| Docket Number | No. 22336.,22336. |
| Citation | 356 Ill. 276,190 N.E. 355 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. CRANE. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Stanley Klarkowski, Judge.
Joseph Crane was convicted for a second offense of grand larceny under the Habitual Criminal Act, and he brings error.
Reversed and remanded, with directions.
Benjamin C. Bachrach and Lester No. Grossman, both of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.
Otto Kerner, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and J. J. Neiger, of Springfield (Edward E. Wilson, J. Albert Woll, and Henry E. Seyfarth, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.
Plaintiff in error was convicted and sentenced in the criminal court of Cook county on an indictment charging a second offense of grand larceny under the Habitual Criminal Act. Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1933, c. 38, § 602. The common-law record is brought here for review upon writ of error; it being contended that the indictment, verdict, and judgment are not sufficient to bring the plaintiff in error within the provisions of the act mentioned.
The indictment, in substance, charges that on April 9, 1929, the plaintiff in error feloniously stole, etc., one automobile of the value of $2,500, the personal goods and property of the Yellow Cab Company, a corporation. It then alleges in apt terms a prior judgment and conviction rendered at the August term, 1923, of the criminal court of Cook county against plaintiff in error. The prior indictment upon which he was convicted in 1923 charged him with having feloniously stolen one automobile of the value of $1,500, the personal goods and property of the Peter Schoenhofen Brewing Company, a corporation. In the present case the jury returned a verdict finding the plaintiff in error guilty of the larceny of a motor vehicle in manner and form as charged in the indictment, finding that the value of the property stolen was $900, and furtherfinding from the evidence that the plaintiff in error was theretofore convicted of the offense of larceny in manner and form as charged in the indictment. His age was found to be twenty-eight years. Thereupon the court entered a judgment and sentence against him, adjudging him guilty of the crime of larceny of a motor vehicle, and further finding and adjudging that he had theretofore been convicted of the offense of larceny in manner and form as charged in the indictment. The sentence of the court was that he be confined in the penitentiary at Joliet for a term of years not to exceed the maximum term fixed by statute for the crime whereof he stands convicted.
The section of the Habitual Criminal Act in question, in so far as it important in this case, provides, in substance, that whenever any person having previously been convicted of burglary, grand larceny, horse stealing, robbery, forgery, or counterfeiting, shall thereafter be convicted of any one of such crimes committed after such previous conviction, the punishment shall be imprisonment in the penitentiary for the full term provided by law for such crime at the time of such last conviction.
Larceny is defined in the Criminal Code as ‘the felonious stealing, taking and carrying, leading, riding, or driving away the personal goods of another.’ (Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1933, c. 38, § 387.) That portion of the Criminal Code applying to grand larceny (section 389) provides: ‘Every person convicted of larceny if the property stolen exceeds the value of fifteen dollars * * * shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one, nor more than ten years; if the property stolen * * * is of the value of fifteen dollars, or less, the person convicted shall be confined in the county jail,’ etc. Another section of the Criminal Code (Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1933, § 388a) defines and punishes the larceny of a motor vehicle in the following words: ‘Whoever shall feloniously steal any motor vehicle the personal property of another, shall be deemed guilty of felony, and shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than twenty years.’ It is important to notice that this last section does not require either allegation or proof of value of the motor vehicle in question.
It is argued by plaintiff in error that the larceny of a motor vehicle is not one of the crimes included in the Habitual Criminal Act, and that the term ‘grand larceny,’ as mentioned in that act, cannot be interpreted as including the larceny of a motor vehicle. It is therefore urged that the court should have quashed that portion of the indictment referring to a former conviction, and that the court erred in receiving and permitting the verdict in question to be filed and in overruling plaintiff in error's motion for a new trial and in arrest of judgment, and erred in sentencing him to the penitentiary for the term of from one to twenty years. On the last point it is to be noted that the sentence of the court was not one committing the plaintiff in error to the penitentiary for twenty years but for an indeterminate time, which point will be noticed later in this opinion.
Larceny is a generic term, within the broad outlines of which there are many different offenses. These include petit larceny, grand larceny, larceny from the person, larceny of an automobile, larceny of a horse, larceny by embezzlement, and others. The basis distinction between the different kinds of larceny is principally a matter of the punishment to be inflicted, requiring different allegations and different proofs for the various grades and degrees of the crime. The distinction between grand larceny and petit larceny is merely a recognition on the part of the courts, which has obtained in this state since 1833, of the different punishments inflicted where the value of the property is more or less than the fixed statutory sum. People v. Burke, 313 Ill. 576, 145 N. E. 164. In those particular types of crime which are included within the generic term ‘larceny,’ where the place or duration of punishment depends on the allegation and proof of the value of the property stolen, this value must be set forth and proved. People v. Jackson, 312 Ill. 611, 144 N. E. 314. In such a case a general verdict finding the defendant guilty in manner and form as charged in the indictment is insufficient. People v. Jackson, supra.
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...There is absolutely no reason why the same set of facts may not constitute separate offenses under different statutes. People v. Crane, 356 Ill. 276, 190 N.E. 355; People v. Koblitz, 401 Ill. 224, 81 N.E.2d 881. The plaintiff in error cannot complain because the jury convicted him of the le......
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