State v. Grisham

• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri
• Writing for the Court: Sherwood
• Citation: 2 S.W. 223,90 Mo. 163
• Parties: STATE v. GRISHAM.
• Decision Date: 06 December 1886

2 S.W. 223

90 Mo. 163

STATE v. GRISHAM.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

December 6, 1886.

1. EMBEZZLEMENT — CHATTEL MORTGAGE — INDICTMENT — FAILURE OF MORTGAGOR TO DELIVER TO RECORDER OF DEEDS — REV. ST. MO. § 1312.

Rev. St. Mo. § 1312, applies only to the theft or embezzlement of an instrument of writing that is or purports to be the act of another; and an indictment that charges a party who has executed a chattel mortgage, and had the same intrusted to him to deliver to the recorder of deeds for registration, with failure to deliver it to the recorder, is insufficient.

2. SAME — INSTRUMENT, BY WHOM DELIVERED TO DEFENDANT — REV. ST. MO. § 1322.

Nor is such an indictment sufficient, under Rev. St. Mo. § 1322, which relates to "any carrier or other bailee" embezzling or converting to his own use "any goods, rights in action, property, or valuable security," when it fails to allege by whom the chattel mortgage was delivered to defendant.

3. SAME — TO WHOM REV. ST. MO. § 1322, APPLIES.

Rev. St. Mo. § 1322, has application only to those who occupy the relation of common carriers, or some similar contractual relation, and does not apply to a mortgagor to whom a mortgage has been intrusted for record, and who fails to have it recorded.

Appeal from circuit court, Scott county.

Indictment for embezzlement. On demurrer.

The Attorney General, for the State. Wm. Hunter, for respondent.

SHERWOOD, J.

The charging portion of the indictment is as follows: "That M. Thomas Grisham, on the fifteenth day of August, A. D. 1883, at the county of Scott, aforesaid, then and there executed, acknowledged, and delivered a certain chattel mortgage to Andrew J. Pigg and John Q. Lemms, by which he conveyed to them five cows, two two-years old steers, and one heifer, and thirty-five acres of growing corn, situate upon the `Huey' farm, in said county, and all of said property of the value of two hundred dollars; that the said chattel mortgage, so as aforesaid executed and delivered by the said M. Thomas Grisham to the said Andrew J. Pigg and John Q. Lemms, was executed and delivered as aforesaid to secure the payment of a certain promissory note of the same date as the said mortgage for the sum of two hundred dollars, payable six months after date, also executed by the said M. Thomas Grisham to the said Andrew J. Pigg and John Q. Lemms, a more particular description of which said note and mortgage is to these grand jurors unknown, and therefore cannot be given, which said chattel mortgage was then and there delivered to the...