Larceny

“ XIX. As for stealing—not that form of it which comes within the range of petty larceny, but the wider and more awful range of felony—it may be safely said, that nearly all public men have steeped themselves to the neck in this crime, and the common people take to it as easily and naturally as birds in a garden take to sweet berries. ”

“ The law of larceny is now contained chiefly in the Larceny Act, 1861, 24 and 25 Viet. c. 96 (which extends to England and Ireland) , a comprehensive enactment including larceny, embezzlement, fraud by bailees, agents, bankers, factors, and trustees, sacrilege, burglary, housebreaking, robbery, obtaining money by threats or by false pretences, and receiving stolen goods, and prescribing procedure, both civil and criminal. There are still, however, some earlier Acts in force dealing with special cases of larceny, such as 33 Hen. ”

“ Public attention has also been called to the large number of indictable offences, and of larceny in particular, committed by persons of this age. Criminal statistics are dominated by the rise or fall in offences of larceny, and this age-category contributed nearly 30 per cent. ”

“ Larceny, as you may or may not know, is the act of taking away the goods or chattels of another without his knowledge or consent, and embezzlement is the fraudulent appropriation to one’s own use of what is intrusted to one’s care and management, especially money. Larceny as bailee, on the other hand, is simply a more definite form of larceny wherein one fixes the act of carrying away the goods of another without his knowledge or consent on the person to whom the goods were delivered in trust that is, the agent or bailee. ”

“ An allegation simply of breaking, entering, and stealing states the burglary in a form which makes it single, and a conviction therefor will bar an indictment for the larceny or the burglary alone. But equally well a first count may set out a breaking and entering with intent to steal, and a second may allege the larceny as a separate thing, and thereon the defendant may be convicted and sentenced for both.' Vol. ”

“ Larceny is, in modern legal systems, universally treated as a crime, but the conception of it as a crime is not one belonging to the earliest stage of law. To its latest period Roman law regarded larceny or theft (furtum) as a delict prima facie pursued by a civil remedy—the actio furti for a penalty, the vindicatio or condictio for the stolen property itself or its value. ”

“ The term theft, sometimes used as a synonym of larceny, is in reality a broader term, applying to all cases of depriving another of his property whether by removing or withholding it, and includes larceny, robbery, cheating, embezzlement, breach of trust, &c. ”

“ The lesson must be taught that larceny does not diminish in turpitude as it increases in the scale of its operations. A nation that feloniously steals, takes, and carries away a city or province is just as criminal as the thief sentenced to imprisonment for robbery by violence on the high-road. ”

“ If you steal four hundred and ninety-nine dollars out of a man's safe in the daytime it is grand larceny in the second degree. If you pick the same man's pocket of a subway ticket after sunset it is grand larceny in the first degree. ”

“ That the crime of larceny reaches its climax48 before the age of twenty-one, shows that the predatory instincts and habits are early formed, or else that if the stealing instincts and habits increase in power after this age, the person becomes shrewd enough in stealing to escape the penalty of the law. ”

“ Only those imprisoned for the smaller offenses of a single incidence of petty larceny, receipt of felons, or accessory to a felony, or some other trespass not punishable by life or limb shall be let out by sufficient surety. Prisoners who were outlawed or escaped from prison or are notorious thieves or were imprisoned for felonious house burning, passing false money, counterfeiting the King's seal, treason touching the king himself, or other major offenses or have been excommunicated by the church may not be released. ”

“ It need not necessarily be committed by the owner of the goods. Under the Larceny Act it is a felony punish- able by seven years' penal servitude to take money or reward corruptly for helping to recover stolen goods without using all due diligence to bring the offender to trial. ”

“ Thus, if the legislature defines some core crime and then provides for increasing the punishment of that crime upon a finding of some aggravating fact—of whatever sort, including the fact of a prior conviction—the core crime and the aggravating fact together constitute an aggravated crime, just as much as grand larceny is an aggravated form of petit larceny. The aggravating fact is an element of the aggravated crime. ”

“ If a man steals goods to the value of 12d., or above, it is felony, and he shall die for it. If it is under the value of 12d., then it is but petit larceny, and he shall not die for it, but shall be punished at the discretion of the judges. This not apply to goods taken from the person, which is robbery, a felony punishable by death. ”

“ The inconveniences of the common law rules of interpretation of indictments led to certain amendments of the law, now contained in the Larceny Act, for the purpose of avoiding the frequent failures of justice owing to the strictness with which indictments were construed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Has A ever stolen anything? it is enough to record one judgment against him, or to bring one witness on the matter in order to establish that A committed theft at least once in his life. If, however, it is to be proved that the man has never committed a theft, his whole life must be reviewed point by point, and it must be shown that at no instant of it did he commit larceny. ”

“ No person, convicted of larceny, or of buying or receiving goods or other things obtained by larceny, burglary, or robbery, shall be condemned to the penitentiary, unless the money or the value of the things stolen, bought or received, shall amount to five dollars. ”

“ A person taking money or reward for helping any other person to stolen goods or chattels is guilty of felony unless he brings the thief to trial.
As of 1717, any person convicted of grand or petit larceny or any felonious stealing or taking of money, goods, or chattels, either from the person or from the house of any person who is entitled to benefit of clergy and who is liable only to whipping or burning in the hand may instead be transported to the American colonies to the use of any person who will pay for his transportation for seven years. ”

“ Lar′cenously.—Grand larceny, in England, larceny of property of the value of one shilling or more; Petty larceny, larceny of property less in value than one shilling; Simple larceny, as opposed to Compound larceny, is larceny uncombined with aggravating circumstances. [O. Fr. larrecin (Fr. larcin) —L. latrocinium—latro, a robber.]
Larch, lärch, n. a genus (Larix) of coniferous trees, distinct from firs (Abies) , with perfectly erect and regularly tapering stem, small branches, numerous small leaves deciduous and clustered, growing rapidly, and yielding good timber. ”

“ The quadruple value included the stolen thing itself, so that the penalty was in effect only a triple one. It was inclusive, and not cumulative, as in furtum.
In England theft or larceny appears to have been very early regarded by legislators as a matter calling for special attention. The pre-Conquest compilations of laws are full of provisions on the subject. The earlier laws appear to regard it as a delict which may be compounded for by payment. Considerable distinctions of person are made, both in regard to the owner and the thief. ”

“ What has concerned codifiers of the larceny-type offense is that gaps or crevices have separated particular crimes of this general class and guilty men have escaped through the breaches. The books contain a surfeit of cases drawing fine distinctions between slightly different circumstances under which one may obtain wrongful advantages from another's property. The codifiers wanted to reach all such instances. Probably every stealing is a conversion, but certainly not every knowing conversion is a stealing. ”

“ A person commits larceny under New York law if he 'unlawfully obtains or appropriates' an article, N.Y.Penal Law, § 1294; he violates the receiving of stolen property statute if he 'in any way * * * conceals, withholds, or aids in concealing or withholding * * * property, knowing the same to have bene stolen, or appropriated wrongfully in such a manner as to constitute larceny,' N.Y.Penal Law § 1308. ”

“ By the first crime act of the United States, forgery of public securities, or knowingly uttering forged public securities with intent to defraud, as well as treason, murder, piracy, mutiny, robbery, or rescue of a person convicted of a capital crime, was punishable with death; most other offenses were punished by fine and imprisonment; whipping was part of the punishment of stealing or falsifying records, fraudulently acknowledging bail, larceny of goods, or receiving stolen goods ”

“ This distinction was abolished by the Larceny Act 1861, which enacted that whoever, being a bailee of any chattel, money or valuable security, should fraudulently take or convert the same to his own use, or the use of any person other than the owner, although he should not break bulk or otherwise determine the bailment, should be guilty of larceny (s. 3) . ”

“ If any lodger shall take away, with intent to steal, embezzle, or purloin any bedding, furniture, goods, or chattels, which he or she is to use, in or with his or her lodging, he or she shall be deemed guilty of larceny, and on conviction shall be punished accordingly. ”

“ Among the exceptions are the restitution of stolen goods on conviction of the thief if the prosecution has been at the instance or with the aid of the owner of the goods (Larceny Act 1861, § 100) , and the award of compensation to persons who have suffered injury to property by felony (Forfeiture Act 1870) .
As Sir Henry Maine says (Ancient Law, ed. 1906, p. 381) , “All civilized systems of law agree in drawing a distinction between offences against the state or community (crimes or crimina) and offences against the individual (wrongs, Development of modern criminal law. torts or delicta) .” ”

“ He had been convicted of larceny, of assaulting the police, and of robbery with violence. There were two sentences of six months' imprisonment recorded against him, one of three months, and two of a month. Besides fines. ”

“ When these men find that they and their customers, and not the clerks and messengers, are paying the loss accounts of the latter, they are very much distressed, and tell the District Attorney, with regret, that only by sending such wicked and treacherous persons to State's prison can similar dishonesty be prevented.
Not long ago the writer became acquainted with a young man who, as loan clerk in a trust company, had misappropriated a large amount of securities and had pleaded guilty to the crime of grand larceny in the first degree. ”

“ If the unhappy person against whom your laudable vengeance is directed be a thief, think that a thief may have a good nose, good eyes, good ears. It is indispensable to his profession that he be possessed of sagacity, foresight, vigilance; it is more than probable, then, that he is endued [Pg 79] with the bodily types or instruments of these qualities to some tolerable degree of perfectness.
4. If petty larceny be his offence, I exhort you, do not confound meanness of crime with diminutiveness of stature. ”