State v. Ehrenberg

• Decision Date: 19 November 1921
• Docket Number: No. 22908.,22908.
• Citation: 234 S.W. 829
• Parties: STATE v. EHRENBERG.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

234 S.W. 829

STATE v. EHRENBERG.

No. 22908.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

November 19, 1921.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court, Wilson A, Taylor, Judge.

William Ehrenberg was convicted of receiving stolen property, and appeals. Reversed and remanded.

As counsel for respondent concede the statement made by appellant to be correct, we hereby adopt the same, as follows:

"The indictment in this case charged defendant, William Ehrenberg, and one Frank Kolafa jointly with stealing an automobile, and in the second count with receiving said automobile, knowing that it was stolen property. It was alleged to be the property of Joseph Nochta and to have been stolen on the 8th day of September, 1917. A severance was granted the defendant, and his motion for the state to elect on which count he would be tried was overruled by the court; but in its instructions the court confined the attention of the jury to the offense of receiving stolen property knowing the same to be stolen, as charged in the second count of the indictment.

"The testimony of Joseph Nachta was to the effect that he was the owner of the automobile referred to in the indictment, and that on or about the date alleged it was stolen from a street in East St. Louis, Ill., during his temporary absence, and that soon thereafter he made a report of its loss to the police department of the city of St. Louis, and subsequently during the early part of the following year he saw his machine at the Wyoming Street police station at the city of St. Louis. Certain parts of a car he saw there he recognized, and other parts thereof he said were not parts of his car.

"Officer John C. Bradshaw, of the St. Louis police department, testified that in February, 1918, he arrested Ehrenberg at his place of business, in front of which was standing a Ford car which he said was his, and which was subsequently identified by Joseph Nochta as the one which was stolen from him in East St. Louis; that Ehrenberg said that he had bought the car from the witness Albert Biehslicht for a debt. Biehslicht, used by the state as an informer, testified that he and Kolafa stole the car and placed it in the garage of the defendant Ehrenberg, and subsequently Ehrenberg kept it and used it as his own car, and that he knew that it had been stolen.

"The testimony of the defendant was to the effect that he did get said car from the witness Biehslicht about the latter part of October or the first part of November, 1917, but that it was left with him as security for a debt, and that be did not know where Biehslicht had obtained the car or that it had been stolen."

Among other instructions given by the court was "2A," hereafter mentioned.

The jury found defendant guilty of receiving stolen property, as charged in the second count of the indictment, and assessed his punishment at two years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. Defendant in due time filed his motion for a new trial, which was overruled. The court pronounced sentence, etc., upon defendant, and the latter was granted an appeal to this court.

Thomas B. Harvey, of St....