State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 31 October 1864 |
| Parties | STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. CHARLES F. WILLIAMS AND JOHN HOWARD, Appellants. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis Criminal Court.
S. Voullaire, for respondent.
R. L. Farnsworth, for appellant.
The defendants say they were two soldiers, who had been in the service; Williams had been in the service about two years and two months as a recruiting officer; was a great favorite in his company; while recruiting he was delayed two or three days, and in consequence was ordered under arrest by his superior officer; resenting the indignity, he resigned. A breach of trust committed in Illinois and a conversion in Missouri, is not, nor can it be a felony in Missouri. The State of Missouri cannot create crimes, or laws making acts criminal, in the State of Illinois, or outside of its own limits. A bailment in a foreign jurisdiction, and a conversion in this State, constitute the two separate material parts of an offence, both parts of which are equally and absolutely essential and indispensable. Until you follow them to this State, you find no evidence of the crime of larceny; all the overt acts showing a felonious intent, if such they were, were done here.
No felonious intent can be established by subsequent acts or facts alone, whenever that is the naked question. (People v. Anderson, 14 John. 295-6.) There is no better settled rule of law than that all crimes are strictly local. In the language of the books, “All crimes are local.” In other words, the prosecution of them can only be carried on in the county of their commission. A grand jury cannot inquire concerning them except in such county; and if a county is divided, a criminal act, done before its division in the part which is created a new county, must be prosecuted in the new. The offence is against the State; the trial in the new county. (Bish. Crim. L., § 552; 17 authorities quoted.)
(Bish. Crim. L., § 251.) “The first intent to trespass on another's property here is wanting, for the persons who are defendants obtained possession as bailees in the State of Illinois of the horse alleged to be stolen, and bailees under contract cannot become guilty of larceny of goods while the relation subsists, because they have possession of the goods in distinction from a custody.” (2 Bish. Crim. L., § 729.) Then the second and further intent essential and indispensable to constitute the offence happened in another State; being in this State, and hence as there could be no larceny in this State while it was only a bailment, nor until actual conversion, there was no complete larceny committed until the conversion in this State. We think we have this precise principle adjudicated and settled by the authorities.
The defendants were not charged in the indictment specially as bailees, so they are not liable under any statute of this State concerning larceny or embezzlement by bailees, for it is expressly decided that such bailees must be charged specially as such; (Hammond v. The State, 5 Mo. 260;) so are all the precedents. Whar. Prec. §§ 468-69, and these decisions are not in conflict with Norton v. The State, 4 Mo. 460.
At the July term, 1864, of the St. Louis Criminal Court the defendants were indicted for grand larceny, and upon conviction sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of seven years. Upon the trial it was shown that on the 9th of June, 1864, defendants put up at a hotel in Carlisle, Illinois, kept by one Truesdale; that Truesdale kept in connection with the hotel a livery stable, and defendants applied to him to hire a horse and buggy, alleging that they wanted to go to Greenville, about twenty miles north of Carlisle, and would return next...
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