United States v. McKenzie

• Decision Date: 28 October 1887
• Citation: 35 F. 826
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. McKENZIE.

35 F. 826

UNITED STATES v. McKENZIE.

United States District Court, S.D. California.

October 28, 1887

J Marion Brooks, Dist. Atty., for the United States.

Stephen M. White, for defendant.

ROSS J.,

(charging jury.) The statute under which the indictment against the defendant was found provides that 'any person employed in any department of the postal service, who shall secrete embezzle, or destroy any letter, packet, bag, or mail of letters intrusted to him, or which shall come into his possession, and which was intended to be conveyed by mail or carried or delivered by any mail carrier, mail messenger, route agent, letter carrier, or other person employed in any department of the postal service, or forwarded through or delivered from any post-office or branch post-office established by authority of the postmaster general, and which shall contain any note, * * * any bank-note; * * * any such person who shall steal or take any of the things aforesaid out of any letter, packet, bag, or mail of letters which shall have come into his possession, either in the regular course of his official duties or in any other manner whatever, and provided the same shall not have been delivered to the party to whom it is directed,-- shall be punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for not less than one year nor more than five years. ' The indictment contains three counts. The first, in effect, charges that defendant, on the 27th of May, 1887, embezzled a certain registered letter containing $40 in bank-notes, addressed to the postmaster at Santa Monica, and which was intrusted to defendant, as clerk in the Los Angeles post-office, to be sent by mail to Santa Monica; the second count, in effect, charges defendant with stealing, at the time stated, from the Los Angeles post-office, a certain letter addressed to the postmaster at Santa Monica, and intended to be conveyed by mail to him; and the third count, in effect, charges defendant with stealing $40 in bank-notes out of a certain registered letter with which he was intrusted, addressed to the postmaster at Santa Minica, and intended for transmission through the mail to the postmaster at that place. There is no evidence as to the contents of the letter spoken of in the evidence, nor does it otherwise answer the description contained in the first and third counts of the indictment; so that your verdict upon the first and third counts must be 'not guilty.'

But there remains for you to consider the second count,-- that charging defendant with stealing the letter in question,-- and you should give to that charge very careful consideration. There is no direct evidence that defendant stole the letter; that is to say, no one, so far as appears saw him steal it. The government relies for a conviction upon circumstantial evidence. A conviction may be had upon such evidence, provided the circumstances so distinctly point to the guilt of the accused as to leave no reasonable explanation consistent with the theory that he is innocent. In other words, the existence of the inculpatory facts must be incompatible with the innocence of the accused, and incapable of explanation upon any other reasonable hypothesis than that of his guilt. You cannot convict the defendant unless his guilt is established to your satisfaction, and beyond a reasonable doubt. Mere suspicion, or even strong suspicion, will...