Case Name: The People vs. Morrison
Court: New York Supreme Court of Judicature
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1835-01
Citations: 13 Wend. 399
Docket Number: 
Parties: The People vs. Morrison.
Judges: 
Reporter: Wendell's Reports
Volume: 13
Pages: 399–400

Head Matter:
The People vs. Morrison.
ALBANY,
Jan. 1835.
The carrying of a watch about the person of a defendant in an execution, and a refusal by him to deliver it to the officer, is not an offence within the meaning of the statute declaring the secreting of property, so as to prevent its being made liable lor the payment of debts, a misdemeanor•
The defendant was convicted, by a court of speeded sessions, of the offence of secreting his property with the intent to defraud Ids creditors, on a prosecution commenced under the 26 § of the “ act to abolish imprisonment for debt and to punish fraudulent debtors.” Statutes, ses. of 1831, p. 396. The evidence upon which he was convicted was the following : A judgment was obtained against him in justice's court for $30, upon which an execution was issued and and delivered to a constable, who called upon the defendant, and finding no property upon which he'could levy, and observing a watch in the watch pocket of the defendant, he asked the defendant if he had not a watch; who answered that he had a watch, which he had bought and for which he had given his note for $18. The constable thereupon demanded the watch, and told the defendant if he refused to deliver it to him, he would be guilty of a misdemeanor. The defendant refused to deliver the watch to the constable, and upon this evidence he was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of $25. ^he defendant sued out a certiorari.
L. I. Lansing,
for the defendant, insisted that the refusal to deliver the watch to the constable was not such a secreting of property, within the meaning of the act, as to subject the defendant to a conviction for a misdemeanor. The refusal of a defendant to apply money, &c. of which he is possessed, to the payment of a judgment rendered against him, subjects him to a warrant, upon which he may be committed until the payment of the debt; but he cannot, for such cause, be proceeded against criminally.
Greene C. Bronson, (attorney general,) for the people.

Opinion:
By the court,
NELSON, J.
In the application of the benign of law, that penal statutes must be construed strictly, the defendant ought not to have been condemned; and even without the aid of this rule, the conviction was wholly unwarranted. It is a perversion of language, and losing sight of the statute, to construe a mere refusal of a defendant to deliver property which he has about his person, a secreting or disposing of it, especially when the defendant, with the property upon him, is within the reach of the officer. The offence created by the statute, as applicable to this case, is, the secreting of property so as to prevent its being made liable for the payment of the debts of the defendant in the execution. The carrying of a watch about the person of the defendant was not a secreting of property within the meaning of the statute, and the conviction must therefore be quashed.
Conviction quashed.