Car theft

“ You do not answer. Then I am to understand that you have a motor-car which was made by somebody else's labor and for which you gave no labor of your own. This I call theft. You call it property. Yet it is theft.
Starkweather
(Interrupting Dolores Ortega who was just about to speak.)
But surely you have intelligence to see the question in larger ways than stolen motor-cars. I am a man of affairs. I don't steal motor-cars.
Knox
(Smiling.) Not concrete little motor-cars, no. You do things on a large scale. ”

“ But not always have the changes produced by automobiles been in the interest of better living. Criminals and those who verge upon criminality have been quick to employ the superior advantages of modern means of rapid transit to assist them in their nefarious work. Automobile theft has taken the place of horse thievery, and automobiles are used daily as a means of getting to and getting away from the place of the crime. Trucks are utilized to haul the loot. ”

“ A typical example of common-law larceny is the taking of an unattended automobile. But an automobile is no less 'stolen' because it is rented, transported interstate, and sold without the permission of the owner (embezzlement) . [16] The same is true where an automobile is purchased with a worthless check, transported interstate, and sold (false pretenses) . [17] Professional thieves resort to innumerable forms of theft and Congress presumably sought to meet the need for federal action effectively rather than to leave loopholes for wholesale evasion. ”

“ A theft is the same anywhere, and so is a murder. With one point, however, they profoundly disagree, and that is the classification of offences. Theft, no matter how trivial, is an offence against the State, is not compoundable, and is cognisable by the police; whereas an assault, no matter how severe, unless it causes grievous hurt, is the opposite. It is a purely private matter, with which the police have no business. If the sufferer wants to prosecute he must do so himself; pay his own expenses and engage his own pleader, or go without. This is a difference that offends his own instinct. ”

“ I can stand losing a big nine-thousand-dollar Mercedes, but—but—you tell it, McBirney. You have the facts at your tongue's end."
Garrick looked questioningly at the detective.
"I'm very much afraid," responded McBirney slowly, "that this theft about caps the climax of motor-car stealing in this city. Of course, you realize that the automobile as a means of committing crime and of escape has rendered detection much more difficult to-day than it ever was before." He paused. "There's been a murder done in or with or by that car of Mr. Warrington's, or I'm ready to resign from the profession!" ”

“ By 1919, the law of most States against local theft had developed so as to include not only common-law larceny but embezzlement, false pretenses, larceny by trick, and other types of wrongful taking. The advent of the automobile, however, created a new problem with which the States found it difficult to deal. The automobile was uniquely suited to felonious taking whether by larceny, embezzlement or false pretenses. ”

“ Thanks to Chief Fobes, in part, and also thanks to their own error, in part, the boys were making a costly mistake by believing the trail of the Torpedo had no connection with the theft of their own car. Or so it would seem, would it not? And yet, even if the thieves who first stole the Harkville car were the same who, later on, made off with the Big Six, what could be gained by going back along the route to deliver the one recovered machine instead of pursuing diligently the more recently stolen property?
“We’ll never see our car again ”

“ If a man fires at a block, no harm can possibly ensue, and no theft can be committed in an empty pocket, besides that the harm of successful theft is less than that of murder. Yet it might be said that even such things as these should be punished, in order to make discouragement broad enough and easy to understand.
There remain to be considered certain substantive crimes, which differ in very important ways from murder and the like, and for the explanation of which the foregoing analysis of intent in criminal attempts and analogous misdemeanors will be found of service. ”

“ When they have marked their game they wait until the victim is coming out of the ’bus. One thief will put some hindrance in the victim’s way, and while he or she is hindered, apparently by accident, in getting out, the theft is committed. ”

“ As, for example, horse-stealing in a closely settled community, which has its railroads and other means of communication, is a crime to be punished by a brief period of imprisonment; while in the sparsely settled sections of a country, where the horse is an imperative necessity of life, its theft becomes a hanging matter, whatever the written law for that section of the country may be as to the punishment of the crime. ”

“ There didn't seem to be any purpose to the car thefts. They hadn't been sold, or used as getaway cars. True, teenage delinquents sometimes stole cars just to use them joyriding, or as some sort of prank.
But a car or two every night? How many joyrides can one gang take? Malone thought. And how long does it take to get tired of the same prank?
And why, Malone asked himself wearily for what was beginning to feel like the ten thousandth time, why only red Cadillacs?
Burris, he told himself, must have been right all along. The red Cadillacs were only a smoke screen for something else. ”

“ The refinements of that crime are not related to the primary congressional purpose of eliminating the interstate traffic in unlawfully obtained motor vehicles. The Government's interpretation is neither unclear nor vague. 'Stolen' as used in 18 U.S.C. § 2312, 18 U.S.C.A. § 2312 includes all felonious takings of motor vehicles with intent to deprive the owner of the rights and benefits of ownership, regardless of whether or not the theft constitutes common-law larceny. ”

“ This is a gross misuse of interstate commerce. Congress may properly punish such interstate transportation by any one with knowledge of the theft because of its harmful result and its defeat of the property rights of those whose machines against their will are taken into other jurisdictions.
The fourth section merely makes more effective the regulation contained in the third section. The third section punishes the transportation of a stolen automobile with knowledge of the theft. ”

“ Article 238 When a person who has committed the crime of theft uses assault or intimidation in order to retain the stolen property, evade arrest or destroy evidence, the person shall be dealt with in the same manner as with robbery. ”

“ Query: Why work so hard on the doors, and not work at all on the ignition?
That was the first place. The second place was just what had been bothering Malone all along. There didn't seem to be any purpose to the car thefts. ”

“ However, as soon as the firms attention was drawn to the amount of the claim the manager, with good judgment, clipped $200 off each piano and a prompt settlement was arranged.
Only a few months ago an organized band of box car and freight shed thieves stole nine pianos and four phonographs from one railway company in a large city, and to date six had been recovered. Claims arising from damage, delay, theft, loss and wrecks are traffic men’s enemies that play the mischief and filter through all departments to the chief legal authorities. ”

“ The police must know about it at once; a theft is a theft, whoever is involved. If respectable people choose to turn themselves into receivers and disposers of stolen goods, well, they’ve ceased to be respectable, that’s all. ”

“ As soon as the thief has made a good stroke, he gives away money right and left, pays his debts, lends to anyone who happens to be in need, and invites everyone to share his good fortune. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and can refuse nothing to anyone. Being constantly watched, thieves denounce themselves by their excessive expenditure, which seems to be one of their invincible needs; and they then fall promptly into the hands of the police. They know that they are pursued; the theft committed one day may cause their arrest the day afterwards. ”

“ But the police arrested Preston for vagrancy, not theft, and no claim was made that the police had authority to hold his car on that charge. The search was therefore to be treated as though his car was in his own or his agent's possession, safe from intrusions by the police or anyone else. The situation involving petitioner's car is quite different. ”

“ I was wrong. I knew I was wrong, and yet I persisted. If that is possible of any explanation it is this: From the day I left my father my lines had been cast, or I cast them myself, among crooked people. I had not spent one hour in the company of an honest person. I had lived in an atmosphere of larceny, theft, crime. I thought in terms of theft. Houses were built to be burglarized, citizens were to be robbed, police to be avoided and hated, stool pigeons to be chastised, and thieves to be cultivated and protected. That was my code; the code of my companions. ”

“ Manfred saw the driver point up the line of cars, and the lame gentleman limped in the direction the chauffeur had indicated and stopped to speak to another man in livery. As they came abreast of him, they saw that one of his boots had a thick sole, and the limp was explained.
“The gentleman has lost his car,” said Manfred, for now he was peering short-sightedly at the number-plates.
The theft of cars was a daily occurrence. Leon had something to say on the potentialities of that branch of crime. ”

“ Insurance Adjuster.”
Briefly, Craig told the story of the stolen car, omitting the account of the dastardly method taken to blackmail Mrs. Blake. As he proceeded a light seemed to break on the face of Garwood, a heavyset man, whose very gaze was inquisitorial.
“Yes, the theft has been reported to us already by Dr. Wilson herself,” he interrupted. “The car was insured in a company I represent.”
“I had hoped so,” remarked Kennedy, “Do you know the woman?” he added, watching the insurance adjuster who had been listening intently as he told about the fair motor car thief. ”

“ The second thing which arrests the attention is the tendency to theft, since the greater part of the homicides have been committed by robbers, and further one sees a great multitude of causes for theft. For among those two kinds of crime are found two-thirds of all kinds of criminality. ”

“ Upon these reasons it is, that I think putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd and of ill consequence to the commonwealth that a thief and a murderer should be equally punished; for if a robber sees that his danger is the same if he is convicted of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed; since, if the punishment is the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery, when he that can best make it is put out of the way; ”

“ But Occult Theft,—Theft which hides itself even from itself, and is legal, respectable, and cowardly,—corrupts the body and soul of man, to the last fibre of them. And the guilty Thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in it, are the Capitalists—that is to say, people who live by percentages or the labour of others; ”

“ Take motorcars, for example. This year five hundred million dollars has been spent for motor-cars. It required men toiling in the mines and foundries, women sewing their eyes out in sweat-shops, shop girls slaving for four and five dollars a week, little children working in the factories and cotton-mills—all these it required to produce those five hundred millions spent this year in motor-cars. And all this has been stolen from those who did the work.
Mrs. Starkweather
I always knew those motor-cars were to blame for terrible things.
Dolores Ortega
But Mr. Knox, I have a motor-car. ”

“ Suppose a boy steals an apple
From the tray at the grocery store,
And they all begin to call him a thief,
The editor, minister, judge, and all the people—
“A thief,” “a thief,” “a thief,” wherever he goes
And he can’t get work, and he can’t get bread
Without stealing it, why the boy will steal.
It’s the way the people regard the theft of the apple
That makes the boy what he is. ”

“ If you do not find a remedy to these evils it is a vain thing to boast of your severity in punishing theft, which, though it may have the appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither just nor convenient; for if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this but that you first make thieves and then punish them?' ”

“ St. § 1215) because the case involves the construction or application of the Constitution, in that the chief assignment of error is the invalidity of the act. The act became effective October 29, 1919 (41 Stat. 324 [Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, §§ 10418b-10418f] ) , and is as follows:
'Chapter 89.-An act to punish the transportation of stolen motor vehicles in interstate or foreign commerce.
'Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that this act may be cited as the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act. ”

“ They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. ”