Case ID: ala_79/html/0269-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "OLOPTON, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

McCord v. The State.
    
      Indictment for Statutory Trespass on Lands.
    
    1. Statutory trespass on lands, cutting trees, &c.; intent to convert. Under the statute which makes it larceny for any person to enter on the lands of another, without his consent, and cut and carry away any timber or rails, “with the intention of converting them to his own use” (Code, § 4360), the specific intent is a material ingredient of the offense, and must be alleged in the indictment.
    From the County Court of Macon.
    Tried before the Hon. P. S. Holt.
    This case originated in the Circuit Court, and was transferred to the County Court. The indictment charged that the defendants “ did knowingly, willfully, and without the consent of Mary C. Burks, she being the owner thereof, enter upon the lands of Mary C. Burks, and cut and carry away three pine trees, the same being timber of the value of five dollars; against the peace,” &c. The defendants demurred to the indictment, “ because it charges no offense,” and “ because it does not aver that the act charged was done with the intention of converting the said trees to his or their own use;” and their demurrer being overruled, they pleaded not guilty. A motion in arrest of judgment, on the ground that the indictment was fatally defective, for the same reasons specified in the demurrer, was overruled and refused. ■ These rulings, with other matters, are now assigned as error.
    Geo. P. Harrison, Jr., for appellant.
    Thos. N. McClellan, Attorney-General, for the State.
   OLOPTON, J.

An indictment, framed under ' a statute which creates an offense and prescribes its constituent elements, must allege all the circumstances or ingredients, which enter into the essential description of the offense. If the intent is a statutory constituent, not only the acts, in the doing of which the offense consists, but the intent with which they are done, must be alleged. Proof of the intention, without an allegation, is not sufficient.—Eubanks v. State, 17 Ala. 181; 1 Bish. Crim. Proc. § 521; Davis v. State, 68 Ala. 58.

The statute on which the indictment is found declares: “Any person who, knowingly, willfully, and without the consent of the owner thereof, enters upon the lands of another person, and cuts and carries off any timber or rails, with the intention of converting the same to his own use, if the property is of the value of twenty-five dollars or more, is guilty of grand larceny; and if the value of the property is less than twenty-five dollars, the offender is guilty of petit larceny.” Code, § 4360. The evil “intention of converting the same to his own use ” is necessary to convert the prescribed acts into a criihe. The indictment, omitting an allegation of the statutory intention, fails to charge an offense.

Reversed and remanded.