State v. Sawyer

• Decision Date: 10 June 1920
• Citation: 110 A. 461,95 Conn. 34
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. SAWYER.

110 A. 461

95 Conn. 34

STATE v. SAWYER.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 10, 1920

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, New London County; Charles B Waller, Judge.

Julia Sawyer was convicted of theft, and she appeals. Error judgment set aside, and cause remanded.

The appeal assigns error in the admission of certain testimony in portions of the charge to the jury, and in the court's denial of a motion to set aside the verdict as against the evidence, which is made a part of the record.

Clayton B. Smith, of New London, and Charles L. Stewart, of Norwich, for appellant.

Charles B. Whittlesey, Pros. Atty., of New London, for the State.

CASE J.

There was little dispute as to the facts, and none at all as to any which affect the ultimate and decisive matter of intent. Making allowance, however, for certain unimportant differences in the testimony, the jury were warranted in finding no facts less favorable to the defendant than these:

The defendant owned and personally managed a lodging house in New London, where one Beatrice Burton, a girl employed during the day in a local drug store, engaged and occupied a room, paying a week's rent in advance and bringing with her a hand bag containing certain of her possessions. Two or three days after this tenancy began, the girl accidentally spilled or spattered on the wall paper and woodwork of her room some liquid dye known as " colorite." She said nothing of this to the defendant, who next day discovered the stains in her absence and removed from the room the bed clothing and the hand bag with its contents, leaving a note for her lodger which called attention to the stained condition of the wall and woodwork, and demanded $5 as payment for the damage so caused. Miss Burton found the note upon her return from work that evening and at once sought out the defendant, who freely admitted having taken away the missing articles and declined to give up the girl's property until reparation had been made for the damage which she acknowledged having caused to the room. It was thereupon agreed and understood between them that Miss Burton should pay the defendant $5 within a day or two thereafter in full satisfaction for the damage she had done, and the defendant then returned the bed clothing to the room, but still declined to restore the hand bag and its contents until the promised payment should be made. Miss Burton remained in the house that night, but, without again seeing or communicating any change of mind or purpose to the defendant, she concluded next day not to make the payment as agreed, and vacated the room. She then went with her story to an attorney, who called upon the defendant and demanded the return of her property, but the defendant, who then first learned of the girl's change of intention, refused to surrender it until the $5 should be paid to her as promised.

The simpler elements of larceny are undeniably present upon these facts. There was a taking and removal of the property from the owner's possession and without her consent. But all this in itself discloses nothing more serious than a trespass, and the vital question is as to the taker's concurrent intent. Was it the felonious one to permanently deprive the owner of, and to wrongfully appropriate to the taker's own use, the property removed, or any portion of it? Unless the defendant's act fills the full measure of these requirements, it was not theft.

In uncovering her actuating purpose, two circumstances become important in their combined significance: An entire lack of attempt at secrecy or concealment, and the obvious fact that in some measure, at least, there was ground for her belief that the girl had become pecuniarily liable for an injury done to the room and either designedly or by inadvertence not reported to her. This gets support as a real rather than a fancied grievance from the...