State v. Oakley
| Decision Date | 01 December 1888 |
| Citation | 10 S.W. 17 |
| Parties | STATE <I>v.</I> OAKLEY. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from circuit court, Dallas county; C. D. WOOD, Judge.
Dan. W. Jones, Atty. Gen., for appellant. R. C. Fuller, for appellee.
Appellee was indicted in the Dallas circuit court for larceny. The property charged to be stolen is described in the indictment as "two ten-dollar bills of United States currency." Is this description sufficient? In an indictment for larceny, as a general rule, the property taken should be described specifically by the name usually appropriated to it, to distinguish it from other property, or by a description sufficient to show the particular kind or species of property alleged to be stolen. It has been adjudged that the description of property stolen as "one pound of meat" was insufficient, because the term "meat" "applies, not only to the flesh of all animals used for food, but, in a general sense, to all kinds of provisions." For a like reason, the description, "two ten-dollar bills in United States currency," in this case, is too indefinite; for United States currency includes the gold and silver coin of the United States, the notes issued by the banks organized under the laws of the United States, the treasury notes, commonly known as greenbacks, and the certificates of deposit, generally called gold and silver certificates, issued by the United States. While it is certain that the property charged to be stolen is not gold or silver, it cannot be ascertained from the indictment what was meant, further than that it was paper currency of the United States. The indictment is not aided by the statute; for nowhere is the stealing of United States currency eo nomine declared by the statutes of this state to be a public offense. The description is too general, too broad, and too vague and uncertain, and is fatally defective. Leftwich v. Com., 20 Grat. 716, 720; Boyle v. State, 37 Tex. 360; Martinez v. State, 41 Tex. 164; Merrill v. State, 45 Miss. 651; Barton v. State, 29 Ark. 68; State v. Ward, 48 Ark. 36, 2 S. W. Rep. 191; State v. Longbottoms, 11 Humph. 39; State v. Morey, 2 Wis. 494; 2 Bish. Crim. Proc. (3d Ed.) §§ 700, 705, 731, 732. Judgment affirmed.
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...original papers on file. The description of the property in the bill of indictment for larceny is, 'five pounds of bacon.' State v. Oakley, 51 Ark. 112, 10 S.W. 17, was a case of larceny of money, where the court was concerned with the sufficientcy of the description of the money in the bil......
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