People v. Long

• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: CAMPBELL, J.
• Citation: People v. Long, 44 Mich. 296, 6 N.W. 673 (Mich. 1880)
• Decision Date: 06 October 1880
• Parties: PEOPLE v. LONG.

6 N.W. 673

44 Mich. 296

PEOPLE v. LONG.

Supreme Court of Michigan

October 6, 1880

Held no variance between the offence for which defendant had been examined and committed and the one for which he was convicted. Certain conversation of defendant with a policeman, and evidence as to what occurred immediately after the theft, held, properly admitted. Showing in regard to absent witness insufficient to authorize evidence of his former statements on another trial. A verdict of guilty, with a recommendation to mercy, violates no principle of public policy.

Exceptions to recorder's court of Detroit.

Otto Kirchner, Att'y Gen., for the People.

Miller & Clarke and Mayberg & Conely, for respondent.

CAMPBELL J.

Long was convicted of stealing a pocket-book and its contents from Frederick H. Blood, at a music hall in Detroit, kept by his father, John P. Long, on the twenty-third of January, 1880. A motion was made to quash the information, on the ground that the respondent had never been examined on the same charge, and that the information was too general, and should have set out more fully the circumstances of the larceny. The facts on which he was convicted were that, while Blood was at the music hall, sitting at a table and drinking with some companions, Long either picked his pocket, or picked up his pocket-book from the floor, to which it had dropped after he had taken it out. The examination before the police justice was for the same offence. He was satisfied from the proofs before him, that defendant should be committed, and his finding on the testimony is not in issue on the trial. There was no variance between the charges. So far as the form of the information is concerned, we do not know how this case of stealing differs from any other, or needs any different description.

Objection was made to the testimony of a policeman to a conversation with respondent while in arrest, it being suggested that as he was a boy of 17 years there was evidence that what he said was under influence. As the respondent made no confession whatever, there was no influence exerted to his prejudice on the trial. Officer Hazard testified to seeing the elder Long search respondent immediately after the theft, and that the father took from his son what appeared to be a gold piece and put it in his own pocket. Witness described it as apparently about the size of a silver 20-cent piece. This testimony respondent's counsel...