Case Title: State v. Houle

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1991-06-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
ENTRY ORDER

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 88-082

                              JUNE TERM, 1991


State of Vermont                  }          APPEALED FROM:
                                  }
                                  }
     v.                           }          District Court of Vermont,
                                  }          Unit No. 2, Chittenden Circuit
                                  }
Thomas J. Houle                   }
                                  }          DOCKET NOS. 360/61-1-87CnCr


             In the above entitled cause the Clerk will enter:

     Defendant appeals from a conviction after jury trial for attempted
grand larceny, 13 V.S.A. {{ 9, 2501.  We affirm.

     Defendant was charged with breaking into a car on a Burlington street
after being apprehended while attempting to flee with an attache case that
he had allegedly removed from the car.  In the attache case was a necklace
valued at $1,200.  He was convicted, and the present appeal followed.

     Defendant argues first that the court erred in failing to instruct the
jury that since the charge was attempted grand larceny, the State had to
prove that defendant intended to steal something valued at more than $500.

     The State responds that the under the larceny and attempt statutes,
taken together, the State need not prove intent to steal an article of a
particular value, but rather must simply prove an intent to steal.  The
classification, under this theory, results from the value in fact of the
objects stolen, just as with the completed crime of larceny.

     The State's argument is correct.  "A person steals if he takes property
from one in lawful possession without right, with the intention to keep it
wrongfully."  State v. Reed, 127 Vt. 532, 538,