Case ID: dc_2/html/0469-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Court", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

United States v. Alexander Carnot.
    The owner of the goods stolen, after having released to the United States and to the prisoner, all his interest in the fine, is a competent witness for the United States, and may he examined generally.
    A foreigner in Virginia is entitled to a jury de medietate linguae.
    
    Bank notes are not goods and chattels, and cannot be the subject of larceny at common law.
    The prisoner was indicted at common law, for stealing certain bank-notes, the property of W. B. Stewart, to wit, two banknotes of the Bank of Virginia, and one ten-dollar bank-note of the Bank of the United States.
    W. B. Stewart, the owner of the notes, was called to testify for the United States, and stated that he had collected $95, which he had laid by in his desk to pay a particular debt; that he had not seen it for two or three days, when, going to his desk, he missed $60. That he asked his wife, who denied she had taken it, and said it must have been taken by the Frenchman, (meaning the prisoner.)
    The Court here interposed and stopped the witness, and asked if it was agreed that he should be examined generally.
    
      Mr. Taylor, for the prisoner,
    objected to the witness because he was entitled to one half of the fine which the Court might impose.
    
      Mr. Swann, the district attorney,
    obtained a release from the witness to the United States, and to the prisoner of all right to the fine; and the Court permitted the witness to be examined generally.
    
      Mr. Ramsay’, for the prisoner,
    in argument to the jury said that the prisoner might have required a jury de medietate lingua.
    
   The Court

(Thruston, J., absent,)

intimated a doubt upon that point, as it was not allowed in Maryland.

Mr. Herbert afterwards produced “ The Richmond Inquirer,” of November 4, 1823, Vol. XX., No. 52, in which it is stated that in the case of the United States v. Manuel Cartacho, in the Circuit Court of the United States, before Mr. C. J. Marshall, and Judge St. George Tucker, “ The Court, according to the motion of the prisoner’s counsel, directed the discharge of the jury that had been previously summoned, and that a new array should be impanelled, one half of which to be foreigners, who were not citizens of the United States.”

See also the Revised Code of the Virginia laws, p. 101, § 13, that “juries de medietate linguae may be directed by the courts respectively.”

Verdict, guilty.

But the Court (Thruston, J., absent,) arrested the judgment, upon the authority of the case of the United States v. Bowen, at April term, 1817, (ante, 133,) banknotes not being goods and chattels at common law.