State v. Morey

• Decision Date: 22 August 1927
• Citation: 138 A. 474
• Parties: STATE v. MOREY et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

138 A. 474

STATE

v. MOREY et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Aug. 22, 1927.

Appeals from Supreme Judicial Court, Oxford County, at Law.

Irving Morey, Walter A. Lord, and Frank Pike were indicted for grand larceny, and last two defendants were convicted on general motion and appeal. Appeals dismissed.

Argued before PHILBROOK, DUNN, DEASY, STURGIS, and PATTANGALL, JJ.

Alton C. Wheeler, of South Paris, and E. Walker Abbott, of Bridgton, for Lord.

Harry Manser, of Auburn, and Wilfred G. Conary, of Norway, for Pike.

Matthew McCarthy, of Rumford, for Morey.

William J. Flanagan, Co. Atty., of Rumford, for the State.

PATTANGALL, J. The above-named respondents were indicted and tried jointly on a charge of grand larceny. Morey, who testified for the state, was acquitted. Lord and Pike were convicted. Motions, in the usual form, to set aside the verdict were filed on behalf of both convicted men, and on denial of the same appeals to this court were taken. Later, additional motions were filed, asking for a new trial on grounds of newly discovered evidence. These motions were also denied and appealed from. Both appeals are considered.

Statement of Case".

The subject of the alleged larceny was a thoroughbred Hereford steer, 3 years old, valued, in the indictment, at $120, the property of one Watson, and said to have been stolen by these respondents from the Warren pasture, so-called, in the town of Waterford. The larceny was alleged to have occurred on September 1, 1925.

Lord and his son-in-law, Pike, were residents of Waterford, occupying a farm distant about a mile and a half from the Warren pasture. They had carried on, jointly, since 1924, a somewhat extensive cattle buying, slaughtering, and meat selling business. Morey was a laboring man and small farmer. From April, 1924, to April, 1925, he lived at Lord's and was employed by Lord and Pike regularly in their business and as an assistant in the farm work. After leaving their regular employ he moved to a small farm of his own, distant about a mile, but continued to butcher for them, at irregular times, as his services were required.

Some time in August, 1925, the steer in question was stolen from the Warren pasture, brought to the Lord place and slaughtered there, Morey and Pike doing the actual killing, Lord being present and rendering some assistance in connection with the work. The carcass was divided between Lord and Pike and the meat sold, by them. Morey testified that he was paid $10 for his part of the work, each of the others paying him $5. The other respondents testified that they paid him $30 each and that the $00 constituted the purchase price of the steer. Morey testified that, after a conference with Lord, he and Pike went from the Lord place direct to the Warren pasture, roped the steer, and brought it to the slaughterhouse. The other respondents testified that Morey, alone, brought the steer to them, represented it as his own, and that they did not know where he procured it. They all agreed that it reached Lord's late in the afternoon, not earlier than 4 o'clock.

On August 16th, Irving Green, who was in charge of the cattle in the Warren pasture, missed the steer from the herd, and thinking that the animal had strayed into the neighboring woods, searched for him, without success. He searched again, with the same result, about September 1, notified Mr. Watson of the situation, and again searched in November. Mr. Watson then advertised the loss of the steer for three weeks, in the Norway Advertiser.

At some time prior to August, 1926, Morey became jealous of attentions shown by Lord to Mrs. Morey and during that month reported to Watson that he and Pike had taken the steer from the pasture and that Lord and Pike had slaughtered and sold the animal. Whereupon Watson placed a claim with an attorney against Lord and Pike, for the value of the steer. The claim was paid, Lord. Pike and Morey contributing $40 each. The indictment was brought some two months later.

General Motion.

At the trial which followed Morey testified that at some time during the early part of August, 1925, he was called to the Lord place to do some butchering; that after a conference in which Lord, Pike, and himself joined, he, with Pike and under Pike's direction, proceeded to the Warren pasture and returned with the steer; that he and Pike killed the animal in Lord's presence; that Lord brought the water to wash up after the butchering was over; and that after the job was completed Lord and Pike each gave him $5. He said that his usual price for dressing a steer was $1, that he asked what the additional money was for, and the reply was, "for helping get this steer and keeping still about it." He also testified that, at Lord's direction, he put the head and feet in a bag and that on a later date Lord informed him as to how and where he had secreted them.

Morey denied having had any guilty knowledge at the time of the larceny of the steer from the pasture. He said that his suspicions were not aroused that there was anything wrong about the transaction until he was paid the money as stated. Presumably the jury accepted this testimony at its full face value, otherwise their verdict of acquittal in his case would be inexplicable.

He testified to Pike's direct participation in the theft. And the jury were justified, if they accepted his version of the matter as the truth, in finding not only that Pike was guilty but that Lord, while not an actual participant in the crime, planned it, directed it, arranged with Pike and Morey as his own, profiting by them equally with Pike. The jury found that Morey was not guilty. If so, he was the innocent agent of Lord and Pike, who were engaged in a Joint criminal enterprise.

If a person causes a crime to be committed through the instrumentality of an innocent agent, he is the...