State v. Alverson

Decision Date08 April 1898
Citation105 Iowa 152,74 N.W. 770
PartiesSTATE v. ALVERSON.
CourtIowa Supreme Court

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Appeal from district court, Iowa county; M. J. Wade, Judge.

Indictment for larceny. Trial by jury, and a verdict of guilty. Defendant filed a motion in arrest of judgment, which the court sustained, and the state appealed. Reversed.Milton Remley, Atty. Gen., for the State.

Hedges & Rumple and C. S. Lake, for appellee.

GRANGER, J.

The defendant is an attorney at law, and was in the employ, as attorney, of Rosanna Meritt, executrix of the estate of M. Meritt, deceased; and the indictment is laid under section 3909 of the Code of 1873, as follows: “If any attorney at law, collector or other person, who in any manner receives or collects money or any other property for the use of and belonging to another, embezzles or fraudulently converts to his own use * * * any money or property of another, * * * he shall be deemed guilty of larceny and punished accordingly.” The indictment charges that E. E. Alverson, at and within said county, “* * * did then and there, by virtue of his said employment as attorney at law of Rosanna Meritt as executrix of the estate of M. Meritt, deceased, have, receive, and take into his possession, as attorney at law as aforesaid, on or about the following dates, to wit.” Then follows a statement of different amounts of money received, with dates, and then as follows: “Said sums amounting to a total of $1,474.02; the particular description of said money to this grand jury unknown; and being the property and moneys of the said Rosanna Meritt as executrix of the estate of M. Meritt, deceased, the said defendant's employer as attorney at law. That on or about the 5th day of February, 1897, and within three years prior to the finding of this indictment, he did then and there unlawfully, feloniously, and fraudulently embezzle and convert to his own use, without the consent of the said Rosanna Meritt as executrix of the estate of M. Meritt, deceased, his employer, the sum of four hundred dollars of the moneys above received by him as such attorney at law, and belonging to Rosanna Meritt as executrix as aforesaid, by means of which the said E. E. Alverson is deemed to have committed the crime of larceny.” The objection to the indictment is that there is no allegation that the value of the property alleged to have been embezzled exceeded $20. There is no such averment in terms, but, if stated in terms, it would be no more conclusively pleaded than it now appears. The indictment surely charges that $400 of money was embezzled. Had the property embezzled been other than money, its value would have been its worth in money; and in determining the fact of its value there would be no inquiry as to the value of the dollars of money, but the inquiry would be, how many dollars is the property worth? and its value thus fixed would be the lawful value for the purpose of fixing the grade or degree of the crime. “The money of account of this state is the dollar, cent, mill, and all public accounts and the proceedings of all courts in relation to money shall be kept and expressed in money of the above denominations.” Section 2075, Code 1873. The foregoing section, were it not otherwise the law, requires the averment as to the value in an indictment to be expressed in dollars, or denominations fractional thereof. We do and must assume that the word “money” in the indictment means the same as the word “money” in the statute. To say in an indictment, in effect, that a dollar is of the value of a dollar, would be meaningless, and hence useless. For such purposes the law fixes the value of the...

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