State v. Mall
| Decision Date | 07 October 1922 |
| Docket Number | 24,147 |
| Parties | THE STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. MARGARET MALL, Appellant |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Decided July, 1922.
Appeal from Clay district court; FRED R. SMITH, judge.
Judgment affirmed.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
1. LARCENY--Evidence--Documents--Cross-examination. It is not error to exclude documents proffered on cross-examination to which no reference was made to the direct testimony of a witness.
2. SAME--Evidence--Civil Action Against Accused for Value of Goods Alleged to be Stolen. A defendant in a larceny case has a right to show the history and disposition of a civil action brought against her by the prosecuting witness for the value of the goods alleged to be stolen by her, but to do so she must make the witness her own, or show it otherwise by evidence adduced in her behalf.
3. SAME. Under the crimes act, section 24, a person whose goods have been stolen may sue the thief for the value thereof, and this right is not dependent upon the pendency or outcome of a criminal prosecution for the theft of the goods.
4. SAME--Evidence--Other Goods Seized in Defendant's Room--Instruction. The instructions properly limited the effect of testimony touching a large amount of goods seized in the defendant's room, other than the articles for the theft of which she was on trial. Such evidence was competent as tending to show that the goods for whose theft she was on trial were taken pursuant to a system of thieving pursued by the defendant.
5. SAME--Competent Evidence to Show Value of Merchandise Stolen. Where articles are stolen from the store of a retail merchant, the value of the stolen articles (for the purpose of showing whether the offense was grand or petit larceny) may be sufficiently proved by showing the retail selling price of such articles in the community where the thefts were committed.
6. SAME--Conviction of Petit Larceny on One Count. In one count of larceny, the evidence tended to show that the stolen article was worth more than $ 20, but the defendant was convicted of petit larceny therefor. Held, not error.
7. SAME--Crimes Charged Larceny and Not Embezzlement. The contention that the defendant's crimes, if any, were offenses of embezzlement and not larcenies, examined, and not sustained.
O. E Peterson, of Clay Center, and Edgar Bennett, of Washington, for the appellant.
Richard J. Hopkins, attorney-general, and William M. Beall, county attorney, for the appellee.
The defendant was convicted on two counts of grand larceny and one count of petit larceny for specified thefts of goods from her employer, a dry-goods company in Clay Center.
Various errors are assigned; and it is argued in her behalf that her several abstractions of goods from her employer's establishment were not larcenies but purchases on account; that if she was guilty of wrongdoing it was embezzlement and not larceny; and she complains of the exclusion of evidence, and that the value of the goods was not properly proved.
Noting these matters in the order presented, the first contention is that the trial court erred in excluding the evidence of a petition and stipulation for judgment in a civil action by her employer against her for $ 10,000 for divers goods appropriated by her during the last six years. Counsel for defendant sought to introduce this petition and stipulation as a part of the cross-examination of the state's chief witness, the proprietor or manager of the dry-goods company. This witness had not testified on direct examination to anything pertaining to this civil action, and therefore it was not within the scope of proper cross-examination. ( Seifert v. Schaible, 81 Kan. 323, 105 P. 529.) The defendant had the right to explain this civil action and settlement. She could have made the proprietor her own witness, or shown the facts by other witnesses, but no evidence was offered in her defense. (Reeves v Brown, 80 Kan. 292, 102 P. 840.) If there was any merit in the present contention that the goods in controversy had been purchased, and that the mere relation of debtor and creditor between herself and her employer arose therefrom,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Owen
... ... pretenses); State v. Chance, 82 Kan. 388, 108 P ... 789, 27 L.R.A.,N.S., 1003, 20 Ann.Cas. 164 (note forgery); ... State v. Ridgway, 108 Kan. 734, 736, 197 P. 199 ... (grand larceny); State v. King, 111 Kan. 140, 206 P ... 883, 22 A.L.R. 1006 (murder); State v. Mall, 112 ... Kan. 63, 65, 209 P. 820 (grand larceny); State v ... Minnick, 113 Kan. 385, 387, 214 P. 111 (receiving stolen ... property); State v. Hays, 113 Kan. 588, 215 P. 1109 ... (disposing of mortgaged property); State v. Turner, ... 114 Kan. 721, 220 P. 254 (liquor); State v ... ...
-
State v. Poulos
...upon the purposes for which evidence of similar offenses or civil wrongs may be considered. (State v. Robinson, supra; State v. Mall, 112 Kan. 63, 209 P. 820; State v. Stephenson, supra; State v. Wright, It is next argued that the court erred in giving Instruction 13a, relating to the unexp......
-
State v. Emory
... ... concurrently or successively, he was subjected to but one ... sentence, which may have been less than he deserved, but ... which certainly presents nothing of which he can reasonably ... complain. (R. S. 62-1718; The State v. Ricksecker, ... 73 Kan. 495, 85 P. 547; The State v. Mall, 112 Kan ... 63, 65, 209 P. 820.) In The State v. Yargus, 112 ... Kan. 450, 211 P. 121, where a defendant was convicted of ... murder in the second degree, when the state's evidence ... showed only a murder by the administration of poison, an ... offense constituting murder in the first ... ...
-
State v. Yargus
... ... conviction of defendant of petit larceny on one count when ... the evidence seemed to show that the value was over $ 20 and ... that a conviction for grand larceny should have followed. But ... that is certainly not prejudicial error." (The State ... v. Mall, ante, pp. 63, 65, 112 Kan. 63, 209 P. 820.) ... The ... judgment is ... ...