People v. Harris

• Decision Date: 08 November 1889
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: PEOPLE v. HARRIS.

43 N.W. 1060

77 Mich. 568

PEOPLE v. HARRIS.

Supreme Court of Michigan

November 8, 1889

Error to circuit court, Wayne county; HENRY E. BREVOORT, Judge.

James V. D. Willcox, Pros. Atty., for the People.

SHERWOOD, C.J.

The respondent was informed against in the Wayne circuit court in two counts. The first count charges him with the larceny of a cow of the value of $50, and in the second he is charged with receiving the stolen property, knowing it to have been stolen. On the trial the respondent was convicted upon the first count, and sentenced to imprisonment for the period of 18 months. The charge of the court only is complained of in this court.

It is claimed the court should have charged the jury that there was no sufficient evidence of the value of the property, or that it was worth more than $25. The owner of the cow was sworn and testified that but a short time before she was stolen he paid $50 for her, and about the time the respondent sold the cow he told the man who was in his employ, and assisting him in making the sale, to ask $30 or $40 for her. We think this was sufficient to go to the jury upon that point.

Respondent's counsel excepts to the charge because it does not sufficiently describe and define the charge made in the information, or state what acts are necessary to be done, and with what intent, to constitute the crime of larceny, and of which the defendant was found guilty. It is difficult to conceive of a jury selected from the citizens of Detroit, under the statutes prescribing the manner of selecting them in Wayne county, so ignorant as not to understand, when told by a court that the information charges the respondent with feloniously stealing, taking, and carrying away the cow, the property of another, and from his possession, of the value of $50, that such facts constituted the crime of larceny. This is in substance what the judge did tell the jury in this case, and it was sufficient upon that point.

There was no testimony in the case showing the property worth, or tending to show it worth, less than $30, so that it was unnecessary to tell the jury that stealing property worth a less amount than $25 would not constitute the offense charged. No requests were made to the court to charge by respondent's counsel, nor were any special findings asked or made.

The portion of the charge most complained of, however, is that wherein the court, after he had impressed upon the...