State v. Menzel.
| Decision Date | 01 May 1947 |
| Docket Number | No. 1.,1. |
| Citation | 52 A.2d 674,136 N.J.L. 233 |
| Parties | STATE v. MENZEL. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error from Court of Quarter Sessions, Essex County.
Richard Menzel was convicted of breaking and entering and of possessing burglary tools, and he brings error.
Judgment affirmed.
January term, 1947, before CASE, C. J., and HEHER and COLIE, JJ.
Duane E. Minard, Jr., Pros., Richard J. Congleton, and C. William Caruso, all of Newark, for the State.
Benjamin M. Ratner, of Newark, for plaintiff in error.
The judgment under review is a conviction in the Essex County Quarter Sessions. The entire record is certified.
At about five o'clock in the morning of August 22, 1945, two South Orange police officers, patrolling by automobile, noticed a car parked, without lights, in front of the Safeway Stores, South Orange. They saw someone run to the car and get in. The car speeded off with the officers in pursuit. Presently the pursued car blew out a tire and stopped. Two persons got out. One, Joseph McGovern, was caught. The other escaped. The officers returned to the Safeway Stores and discovered that a lock had been broken and a pair of pliers had been left jammed in the door and along the route found another burglary tool. The car was the property of Richard Menzel. A warrant issued for Menzel, but he was not found either at home or at his place of employment or elsewhere. The police seized the car and retained possession for three months when the chattel mortgagee took over because of Menzel's failure to pay the charges accrued after August 22nd. Menzel had made no application for the car either to the police or at the garage which had the physical custody of it. On August 5, 1946, a police officer who knew Menzel and knew that there was an outstanding warrant saw Menzel going into a drug store in Boonton, N. J., and arrested him.
Menzel and McGovern had been indicted by an Essex County grand jury on September 3, 1945, for breaking and entering and also for possessing burglary tools. McGovern was tried and convicted on October 16, 1945. At his trial he testified that Menzel had committed the crime; but when called as a witness for the state at the trial of Menzel he said that he had so testified because he considered it a good ‘out’ for himself; that the truth was that he and Menzel had been together earlier in the morning at a tavern; that McGovern had borrowed Menzel's car for the purpose of taking someone home and that Menzel...
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...State v. Harrington, 87 N.J.L. 713, 94 A. 623 (E. & A.1915). Later ones say that it raises 'an inference' of guilt. State v. Menzel, 136 N.J.L. 233, 52 A.2d 674 (Sup.Ct.1947), affirmed per curiam 137 N.J.L. 616, 61 A.2d 237 (E. & A.1948). And the latest expressions of the doctrine seem to b......
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...is unexplained that it raises a presumption of guilt. State v. Jaggers, 71 N.J.L. 281, 58 A. 1014 (E. & A. 1904); State v. Menzel, 136 N.J.L. 233, 52 A.2d 674 (Sup.Ct.1947) , affirmed 137 N.J.L. 616, 61 A.2d 237 (E. & A. 1948). But the court did not charge that flight raises a presumption o......
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Error v. Menzel
...review herein is affirmed, for the reasons expressed in the opinion delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Case in the Supreme Court, 136 N.J.L. 233, 52 A.2d 674. For affirmance: The CHANCELLOR, Justices BODINE, DONGES, JACOBS, EASTWOOD, and BURLING, and Judges WELLS, DILL, FREUND, McLEAN, and SCHE......