9 Mo. App. 298 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1880
delivered the opinion of the court.
The defendant was convicted in the court below of receiving stolen property, knowing it to have been stolen. In October, 1877, one Hale went to the defendant’s stable, in
At the close of the State’s case, the defendant asked the court to rule that the evidence did not sustain the indictment and that the jury should acquit the defendant, which the court refused to do. The defendant introduced no evidence. The court, after defining larceny and stating the nature of the charge, gave, among others, the following instruction: “ If, therefore, from the evidence, you believe and find that the money mentioned in the indictment was by some one, other than the defendant, actually, feloniously stolen, taken, and carried away from Thomas B. Hale, with the intent, on the part of the thief, feloniously to convert it to his own use and make it his property, without the consent of the true owner of said money; that said money was the property of said Hale, and was of the value of $20 or more; and that after it had, by some one other than the defendant, been thus stolen, taken, and carried away, the defendant did feloniously take and receive it into his possession, and that at the time he did so he knew it to be stolen money, you will find him guilty of receiving stolen property, knowing it to be stolen, as charged in the indictment, provided you further find from the evidence that all this occurred in the city of St. Louis,” etc.
There was here but one count in the indictment: that for receiving the money, knowing it to have been stolen. We think it clear, not only that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the count, but that there was no evidence to sustain it. The case put by Alderson B., in Regina v. Perkins, 5 Cox C. C. 554, is: “If one burglar stands outside a window while another plunders the house and hands out the goods to him, he surely could not be indicted as a receiver. ” But the facts of the case at bar are more strongly against conviction than those of the case supposed, or those of the actual case of Regina v. Perkins. Here, though the defendant received the money, it is clear that his receipt, consid
As what has been said shows that the conviction should be quashed, it is unnecessary to consider other points. The judgment is reversed, and the casa remanded to the court below for final disposition.