State v. Murry
| Decision Date | 24 March 1881 |
| Citation | 8 N.W. 350,55 Iowa 530 |
| Parties | THE STATE v. MURRAY |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Iowa District Court.
THE defendant was indicted for the crime of larceny in stealing an overcoat of the alleged value of thirty-five dollars. He pleaded he had been convicted for the larceny of the same overcoat before a justice of the peace, and punished therefor.
To this plea the State demurred, on the grounds: First, that the former conviction being for a minor offense cannot be pleaded in bar of the offense charged in the indictment: Second, that the offense charged in the indictment is a felony and punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary, when the former, the conviction for which is pleaded in bar, is a simple misdemeanor and punished by imprisonment in the county jail, or by fine only, and cannot be here pleaded. The demurrer was overruled and the State appeals.
AFFIRMED.
J. F McJunkin, Attorney General, and M. P. Smith, District Attorney, for the State.
No appearance for appellee.
The Attorney General does not claim that a person may be punished twice for the same offense, but he insists there are degrees in larceny, and that a conviction for the lower will not bar the higher. That the former cannot include the latter, but that the latter does include the former, and The State v. Foster, 33 Iowa 525, is relied on. All that was held in that case was, when an offense consists of different degrees, a conviction for the lesser will not bar a prosecution for the greater. We have no occasion to either affirm or overrule that case.
It is also insisted the question now before us was determined in favor of the State in The State v. Wood, 46 Iowa 116. This is a mistake. The point determined in that case was that on the trial of an indictment for larceny an instruction that the value of the property should be determined by a fair preponderance of the evidence, instead of beyond a reasonable doubt, was erroneous. We adhere to that ruling.
In discussing the question then before the court, language was used from which the inference is drawn that it was held there were degrees in larceny. In one sense this is correct, in another not. So far as the extent of the punishment is concerned it was not inaccurate to say there were degrees in larceny. That is, grand larceny is a felony and petit larceny a misdemeanor, and the commission of either is punished accordingly....
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