Schiff v. People, 15161.
| Decision Date | 13 September 1943 |
| Docket Number | 15161. |
| Citation | 141 P.2d 892,111 Colo. 333 |
| Parties | SCHIFF v. PEOPLE. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Error to District Court, City and County of Denver; Henry A. Hicks Judge.
Joseph Schiff was convicted for larceny as bailee, and he brings error.
Reversed.
Leo S. Moses and Reid Williams, both of Denver for plaintiff in error.
Gail L Ireland, Atty. Gen., H. Lawrence Hinkley, Deputy Atty. Gen and James S. Henderson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendants in error.
Plaintiff in error, to whom we hereinafter refer as Schiff, has sued out a writ of error in this court seeking to reverse a judgment of conviction against him whereby he was found guilty of larceny as bailee and sentenced to imprisonment for a term from eight to nine years in the state penitentiary. By a second count of the information filed against him he was charged with feloniously receiving stolen goods, but as to this count the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
The record shows that Schiff was engaged in the junk business in Denver, and that on several occasions during the month of April, 1941, he purchased copper wire from one Calabrese. Schiff, becoming suspicious of the source of the wire, made a written notation of the license number of the Calabrese car and reported his suspicions to the police, who subsequently traced the source of the wire and arrested Calabrese. Calabrese pleaded guilty and was sentenced to the state reformatory, but was granted probation.
The first three purchases made by Schiff from Calabrese were small items, but the last one involved 468 pounds of copper wire for which Schiff paid $37.44, and it was on this item that he was arrested and convicted. The man who verified the information against Schiff was one Wicker, manager of the Western Machinery Company from which the copper wire was allegedly stolen, and of which Calabrese was an employee.
April 21, 1941, members of the Denver police department attached a red tag to the 468 pound spool of wire, which was in Schiff's possession, upon which was printed . It is not disputed that the hold order had not been released at the time of Schiff's trial.
There is a considerable amount of testimony in the record concerning the question of whose duty it was to make demand for the release of the wire, and some conversation between Wicker, Schiff, the District Attorney and even the trial judge, concerning the matter appears in the record. There is innuendo at least that it was the custom of the police department not to release stolen property until a compromise settlement had been made between the person from whom the property had been stolen and the person who purchased it. We make no comment, nor do we pass judgment upon the alleged custom, although it seems to be conceded that legally the 'hold order' was without authorization.
While there are a number of assignments of error, we deem it necessary to consider only one, viz., that the trial court erred in denying Schiff's motion for a directed verdict.
We know of no law, and none is cited by counsel, that will sustain a conviction based upon evidence such as we find in this record, and the case should not have been submitted to a jury. It may be true that the 'hold...
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