United States v. Greve
| Decision Date | 15 November 1894 |
| Docket Number | 3,860. |
| Citation | 65 F. 488 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. GREVE. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Wm. H Clopton, U.S. Atty.
Lee & McKeighan and D. P. Dyer, for defendant.
In this case I have been compelled with great haste to reach a determination upon the demurrer to the indictment. Of course a trial judge cannot, because of the pressing nature of his duties, give the same deliberate consideration to a case that is possible for an appellate tribunal. I think, in cases of this character, however, where the court entertains a substantial doubt as to the validity of an indictment, a demurrer ought to be sustained, because the error can at such a stage of the proceedings be remedied with less cost, and much more easily, than at any other. The defendant in this case, a clerk in the employment of the Fourth National Bank of St. Louis, is charged with having wrongfully and unlawfully embezzled and converted to his own use 'certain of the moneys and funds of said national banking association of the amount and value of fifty-seven hundred and twenty-three dollars and ninety-three cents ($5,723.93), ' which came into his custody as such clerk. There are two counts. The second alleges that he 'wrongfully and unlawfully embezzled and converted to his own use moneys and funds of said bank of the amount and value of forty-one hundred and nine dollars and twenty-one cents ($4,109.21). ' The sufficiency of both counts of the indictment is questioned by demurrer upon two grounds: First, that it is not charged that the acts were feloniously done; second, that 'the moneys and funds' are not described with sufficient certainty.
As to the first ground. At this time, and upon the brief consideration I have been able to give to the subject, I am not prepared to hold that the indictment must charge that the embezzlement or conversion was felonious. It would unquestionably be the safest practice. It is seriously debatable whether an indictment omitting that word or its necessary and full equivalent is not defective. The federal courts, it is true, do not deal in their criminal jurisdiction with common-law offenses. They only recognize such as are created and defined by congress within its constitutional authority. However, in the enactment under consideration, congress has employed the word 'embezzlement,' and being technical, it must bear in the context that technical signification which it has usually borne, and, if it be a complex or component word comprehending in the form of definition an offense, in...
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... ... deposit a state warrant ... United ... States v. Greve, 65 F. 488; Masbrook v ... Palmer, 11 Fed. Cas. 766; Ayers v. Lawrence, ... ...
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White v. United States
...upon motion of the defendant, a bill of particulars may be required." See, also, People v. Cohen, 8 Cal. 42. In United States v. Greve, 65 F. 488, at page 490 (D. C. Mo.), a demurrer to the indictment upon an embezzlement was sustained in the following language: "If, in the case at bar, onl......
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People v. Redondo
...And. Law Dict.). * * * " ' "Funds" include money and much more, such as notes, bills, checks, drafts, stocks and bonds. United States v. Greve (D.C.) 65 F. 488, 490; Hasbrook v. Palmer, 11 Fed.Cas. 766 [Fed.Cas. No. 6,188]; Ayres v. Lawrence, 59 N.Y. 192, "See, also, Johnson v. State, 37 Ga......