Soule v. The State Of Ga.

• Decision Date: 30 September 1883
• Citation: 71 Ga. 267
• Parties: Soule. vs. The State of Georgia.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

71 Ga. 267

Soule. vs. The State of Georgia.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

SEPTEMBER TERM, 1883.

Criminal Law. Larceny. Before Judge Hammond. Fulton Superior Court. April Term. 1883.

Defendant was indicted for larceny after trust. The evidence showed, in brief, as follows: He desired to go from Atlanta, Georgia, to Jacksonville, Florida, and purchased from one Shelton a ticket for that purpose. The ticket was a round-trip ticket with coupons for passage from Chicago to Jacksonville and return. As the coupons were not good if detached, defendant was entrusted with the entire ticket to use the coupons to Jacksonville and return the balance. One Kattenhorn went security for defendant, so that the latter could obtain the ticket, and he was the person charged in the indictment to have been defrauded. After reaching Jacksonville, defendant was called upon both by telegram and by personal application to return the ticket, but failed and refused to do so. He was brought back to Atlanta under a requisition from the Governor of Georgia, was carried before a committing magistrate, and Kattenhorn made demand upon him for the tickets or their price, $50.00, but defendant did not comply with the demand. The ticket contained a limit on its use, which expired before the prosecution was begun.

Defendant, in his statement claimed to have lost the ticket. He was convicted, moved for a new trial on the grounds set out in the decision, which was overruled, and he excepted.

C. D. Hill; Frank L. Haralson, for plaintiff in error.

B. H. Hill, solicitor general, by brief, for the state.

Hall, Justice.

The defendant was indicted, tried and convicted, under §4422 of the Code, for the offence of larceny after a trust. A motion was made for a new trial, and refused, upon the following grounds:

(1.) That the verdict is contrary to law and evidence.

(2.) Because the court erred in charging that, if the defendant did not fraudulently convert the tickets to his own use in Fulton county, the jury should look further tothe evidence to see whether he disposed of them out of said county, without the consent of the owner or bailor, and to his injury, and whether he failed or refused to pay over to the owner or bailor, on demand, the full value or market price of said tickets in said county; that if they found he did dispose of them outside of the county and without the consent of the owner or bailor, and to his injury, and afterwards, in said county, he failed, on the demand of the owner or bailor made in this county, to pay over the full value or market price of them, he would be guilty. That they would observe that there were two propositions: First, did he convert the tickets in this county? Second, lid he dispose of them without this county and without the consent of the owner or bailor, and on his demand in this county, fail to pay over to him their full value or market price, and if either of these propositions were found to be true, it would be their duty to find him guilty.

(3.) Because the proof showed that at the time of the demand made in this county, the article was of no value.

(4.) Because the railroad ticket and coupons entrusted to defendant had no legal value.

(5.) Because there was no sufficient proof of any conversion of the article entrusted by defendant, he having in his statement averred that he had lost the same.

The only one of these grounds confidently relied upon for a reversal of this judgment is the second; and we are of opinion that the law was stated in that ground as favorably to the defendant as was allowable under the section of the Code above cited and the various decisions of the court thereunder.

There is no doubt that the ticket in question was entrusted to the defendant in Fulton county, with a right to use a specified portion of the coupons thereto attached, with the distinct engagement when he reached Jacksonville, Fla. his point of destination, he would return the ticket, with the balance of the coupons, to the party entrusting him with...