People v. Walker

• Decision Date: 26 April 1910
• Parties: PEOPLE v. WALKER.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

198 N.Y. 329

91 N.E. 806

PEOPLE

v.WALKER.

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 26, 1910.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Eugene B. Walker was convicted of receiving stolen property, and, the conviction being affirmed by the Appellate Division (134 App. Div. 909,118 N. Y. Supp. 1132), he appeals. Reversed.

There were two counts in the indictment against the defendant. By the first he was charged with feloniously and criminally buying and receiving from Arthur Greenwood and others certain property, consisting of whips, lap robes, and the like, which had been stolen, knowing the same to have been stolen. By the second count he was charged with corruptly and for reward concealing and withholding said stolen property, knowing it to have been stolen. The jury found a general verdict of guilty, and the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years and six months and not more than four years. The judgment entered accordingly was unanimously affirmed by the Appellate Division.

George B. Dolsen, for appellant.

Freelon J. Davis and William B. Baker, for the People.

VANN, J. (after stating the facts as above).

The statute relating to the subject of this appeal, so far as now material, provides that ‘a person, who buys or receives any stolen property * * * knowing the same to have been stolen * * * or who corruptly, for any money, property, reward, or promise or agreement for the same, conceals, withholds, or aids in concealing or withholding any property, knowing the same to have been stolen, * * * is guilty of criminally receiving such property, and is punishable’ accordingly. Pen. Code, § 550.

Thus there must be three concurring facts to constitute the crime: (1) The property must have been stolen by some one. (2) It must have been bought, received, concealed, or withheld by a certain person. (3) Such person must have known that the property was stolen. While the Code does not expressly so provide, by necessary implication the action of the accused person must have been taken with felonious intent, as otherwise possession by officers of the law engaged in the detection and punishment of crime, as well as other cases of special but innocent possession, might come within the statute when literally read.

Upon the trial evidence was given by the professed thief and others tending to show that the property was stolen. This evidence was uncontradicted. Evidence was also given by the professed thief and another, both of whom were discredited as well as sustained by testimony relating to character, tending to show that the defendant had the property in his manual possession, and, aside from this, other evidence tended to show that some of the property was in a block occupied by the defendant, and the rest in a barn on a farm belonging to him and in his possession, two miles from his residence. Several persons had access to both buildings. All this evidence was uncontradicted, but the jury could have disbelieved the evidence of the witnesses whose testimony was challenged by impeachment, and the other evidence relating to possession by the defendant was subject to diverse inferences, although not in a marked degree. The bulk of the evidence related to the question whether the defendant knew that the property was stolen, and upon this subject there was a conflict, although the defendant was not sworn.

The court charged the jury that ‘there is no dispute as to the fact that certain articles of personal property were stolen from the barn of Mr. Ingersoll on the night of the sixth of August last. * * * The boy, Greenwood, tells you that he was the one that went there and stole the articles and tells you where he took them. There is no dispute of that evidence at all. All questions of fact are for you to decide. I cannot decide questions of fact. I can tell you what the law is and that you are bound to follow, but as to the questions of fact in this case-(1) were the articles stolen, (2) did they come into the possession of the defendant, and (3) did he know at any time after that that they were stolen property-all those are questions for you to decide. * * * I call your attention to certain parts of the evidence which you are to consider as to whether or not the defendant knew that it was stolen property. There is but one question here. There is no question about its being stolen and that it was in his possession. That is not denied. No one denies it. * * * If you find that at any time after the goods went on to the premises of the defendant, which the evidence apparently shows to be the 6th of last August, if during any of that period of time down immediately before they were recovered he knew that these goods had been stolen, then he is guilty of receiving stolen property, knowing it to have been stolen. * * * If you find that they were stolen, of which there is no question, and in his possession, and he knew that they were stolen, there is but one plain duty for you to do. If you find the contrary, there is but one thing for you to do, and that is an acquittal.’ At the...