State v. Welch

• Decision Date: 31 October 1880
• Parties: THE STATE v. WELCH, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

73 Mo. 284

THE STATE

v.WELCH, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1880.

Appeal from Holt Circuit Court.--HON. H. S. KELLEY, Judge.

AFFIRMED.

James Limbird for appellant.

D. H. McIntyre, Attorney General, for the State.

HENRY, J.

At the April term, 1880, of the Holt circuit court, the defendant was indicted under section 1315, Revised Statutes 1879, and charged with having found $30, the property of one Harrison Vandiver, and feloniously made way with and secreted the same, with intent then and there, feloniously, to convert it to his own use and benefit, with intent to defraud the owner of the same, and to which money defendant had not obtained the lawful title. The indictment is in the language of the statute, and aptly states the facts constituting the offense. The defendant was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment in the penitentiary. From the judgment he has appealed.

There was evidence tending to establish the facts alleged in the indictment and fully warranting the conviction.

The defendant offered evidence to prove that it was a general belief among colored people in that county that money or property found, having no marks upon it to indicate its ownership, belonged to the finder. The court properly excluded the evidence. It is a principle as old as the common law that ignorance of the law is no excuse for its violation; and the law is the same for a colored as for a white person. We have not now a criminal code for the whites and a different one for the blacks. Under our present constitution no law making such a distinction would be of any validity. Wharton's Crim. Law, sec. 88, p. 1794, is cited as sustaining the proposition that taking possession of money and determining to keep it under an honest belief of a right to do so because found, is a good defense. There is no section 88, at page 1794, and the sections on that page do not relate to the subject under consideration, but section 87, page 87, asserts the general proposition that “Ignorance or a mistake of fact is admissible for the purpose of negativing a particular intention,” and that “Where a particular intent is necessary to constitute the offense, ( e. g. in larceny animus furandi, in murder malice,) then ignorance or mistake is evidence to cancel the presumption of intent and to work an acquittal either total or partial.” But in section 88, he says: “When a statute makes an act indictable irrespective of guilty knowledge, then ignorance of fact is no...