Case Name: HEMMAKER vs. THE STATE OF MISSOURI
Court: Supreme Court of Missouri
Jurisdiction: Missouri
Decision Date: 1849-03
Citations: 12 Mo. 453
Docket Number: 
Parties: HEMMAKER vs. THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
Judges: 
Reporter: Missouri Reports
Volume: 12
Pages: 453–455

Head Matter:
HEMMAKER vs. THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
A person committing larceny abroad, coming' into this State and bringing tile stolen property with him, may be indicted, convicted and punished in the same manner as if the larceny had originally been committed here.
APPEAL FROM ST. LOUIS CRIMINAL COURT.
STATEMENT OP THE CASE.
This was an indictment found by the grand jury of St. Louis county against the defendant, Peter Hemmaker, charging him with grand larceny in the county of St. Louis
On tho trial of said indictment, the State introduced as a witness one John or Frederick Na-house, who testified that himself and defendant were passengers on board the ship Washington, from Bremen to the United States ; and that they landed at New Orleans, in the State of Louisiana, on the first day of January, 1848 ; that there was a large number of passengers on board tho said ship ; that he was slightly acquainted with Hemmaker. They did not sleep together. The said witness had in his possession a watch, which was stolon from Ins pocket on the morning they landed, between four and five o’clock in the morning. He did not know who took it, lie was asleep at the time it was taken. The defendant slept on the opposite side of the ship from where witness slept; he did not see the defendant about his berth on that night. The witness further testified that tho watch was worth twelve dollars, or that he gave that sum for it; does not know its value in New Orleans at the time he lost it—he made no search for the watch. Witness started for St, Louis tho second day after ho landed, and has resided here ever since. Tho defendant remained in Now Orleans some three months after they landed, and then came to St. Louis. After he had been in St. Louis some short rime, probably about a month, I asked him for my watch. He said he had no watch. I got a search warrant, went with the officer to the house he boarded at, and ho gave up a watch that 1 recognized to be mine. Hemmaker knew my watch as well as I did. Tho witness further testified that he could not tell why he suspected the defendant for stealing his watch.
The Slate introduced another witness to prove the identity of the watch, and also to prove that the defendant gave it up to Nahouse, in St. Louis.
The defendant introduced Thomas Cohen and Albert Cohen, watch makers and jewellers residing in the city of St. Louis, who testified that the watch was worth from seven to eight dollars ; at that timo the main spring and crystal being broken, and the watcli otherwise out of repair. Now watches like it wore worth §15. Albert Cohen testified that lie could sell such watches for seven dollars. The price of said watch at Now Orleans he could not toll.
After the case was closed the court gave the following instruction to the jury :
1st. If you find from tho evidence that the defendant stole the watch mentioned in tho indictment from the witness Nahouse in tho Slate of Louisiana, and biought tho said watch into tho county of St. Louis in this State, that the wateh was of the value of ten dollars, and was the property of John Frederick Nahouse, you ought in such case to find the defendant guilty of grand larceny, and fix his punishment in tho penitentiary not less than two, nor more than five years.
2d. possession of property proven to have been stolen when such possession is recent after the theft, raises tho presumption that tho person m possession is the thief; but the strength of this presumption is weakened by lapse of timo between ttbo loss of tilo property and tho finding it in tho possension of another, to the giving of which instructione the defendant cxceptccl.
The defendant asked the courtjto instruct the jury.
1st. If they believe from the testimony that the watch charged to have been stolen by the de fondant waa stolen in the city of Now Orleans, in the State of Louisiana, they will ind the defendant not guilty.
2d. Before they can convict the defendant upon the evidence offered on part of the State, it must appear that the defendant was guilty of larceny according to the laws of Louisiana.
3d. Before the jury can convict, the defendant must prove by the laws of Louisiana, where the offence is alleged to be committed, that said offence was made larceny by the laws of Louisiana.
4th. The possession of stolen property, unless it be recently after the larceny is committed, raises no presumption that the party in possession was the thief. If the jury thefore believe that the defendant was found in possession of the watch four months after the larceny was committed, sue!) possession is not, in contemplation of law, a recent possession, unless the jury believe from tho evidence that the value of the watch, when found in the. possession of the defendant in this State, was worth ten dollars or upwards, they cannot find the defendant guilty of grand larceny. The defendant asked the court to instruct the jury as follows: There is no evidence before them that the defendant obtained tho watch by larceny in the State of Louisiana—which instructions the court refused to give, and the defendant excepted. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of grand larceny, and fixed the punishment at two years imprisonment in the penitentiary.
The defendant afterwards filed his motion for a new tria!, which motion the court overruled, and the defendant excepted, and appealed to this court.
A. P. Field, for appellant.
Tho first point in this case is, that the court had no jurisdiction of the offence, it having been committed in the State of Louisiana. 4 Humphrey’s Rep. 456; 1 Taylor; 2 Reports (N. C.) 250. 2 Vol. United States Digest p. 107; 1 Haywood p. 100; 5 Binney’s Rep. 617; 2 Johnson 479[ Second. The court had no authority to try the defendant for a crime committed in another State. If so, they could try him for treason, arson, or burglary in a foreign kingdom.
¡f Hemmaker, the defendant, was guilty of an offence in Louisiana amounting to felony, and fled to this State, tho act of Congress in relation to fugitives from justice, requiring that he s hall be surrendered to the authorities of tho State ftom which ho fled, and for the offence so committed, this State could have no power to punish hint. See act of Congress, also Revised Statutes of Mo. 1845, page 535, 1st sec. and 6th, and also sec, 8, 9, 10.
Before the defendant could have been convicted under the present indictment, it was necessary for tho Stato to have proved that be had committed larceny by the laws of the State of Louisiana. If the act of taking the watch in that State was a mere misdemeanor or trespass, then it was no offence in the defendant to biing the watch into the State of Missouri. The criminal court therefore erred in refusing to instruct the jury to that effect, as requested by the defendant.
The criminal court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that unless the watch was worth ten dollars, or upwards, at the time the same was found in his possession, in this State, he could not be found guilty of grand larceny.
Tho jury had no right to inquire Into the value of tho property at the time it was lost in the Stato of Louisiana. If it was an offence at all over which the court had jurisdiction, it commenced only from the time the defendant came to this State.

Opinion:
Judge Napton
delivered the opinion of the court.
The principal question presented by the instruction in this case, involves the power of the legislature to enact the third section of the 9th art. of the act concerning crimes and punishments. That section provides iC that every person who shall steal, or obtain by robbery, the property of another, in any other State or country, and shall bring the same into this State, may be convicted and punished for larceny in the same manner as if such property had been felonously stolen or taken within this State, and in any such cases, the larceny may be charged to have been committed, and may be indicted and punished, in any county into or through which such stolen property may have been brought. " The argument which denies to the legislature the power to pass such a law seems to be based upon the assumption that it is designed to execute the criminal laws of another State or country. The cases to which we have been referred arose in States, where no such legislative enactment as the above was in force. In Tennessee, in North Carolina and in New York, previous to the revision of 1830, the Courts held, that by the common law and in the absence of any statutory enactment, offences of this character committed in another State or foreign country were not cognizable in their respective courts. These opinions are based upon the doctrine in Butler's case (3 Co. Inst. 113) and upon the additional fact that the states of this union do not occupy the same relation to each other which the counties of England did. In Massachusetts a contrary decision was made in the case of the Commonwealth vs. Anderson (2 Mass. Rep. 14.) We are not under the necessity of deciding the question which these cases present. Our statute was obviously intended to punish offences committed against our criminal laws, and not those which were committed without the jurisdiction of the State. If the legislature think it expedient to declare that a person who is guilty of grand larceny in another State or country and brings within our jurisdiction the stolen goods, shall be considered as guilty of grand larceny here, it is clearly within their constitutional power to make such enactment. In the determination of the character of the offence there is no necessity for enquiring what may be larceny under the laws of the country where the offence was committed. The legislature punish the offence committed in this State by bringing the stolen property into it, and in doing so, they merely codify a settled principle of the common law applicable to different counties, and extend it here to neighboring states and foreign countries. The case of the people vs. Bush (11 Wend. 129) is an authority in point upon a statute exactly like our own.
Judgment affirmed.