Opinion ID: 1233313
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: there was insufficient evidence to convict.

Text: The statute under which this prosecution is brought is as follows: Every person who, with intent to deprive or defraud the owner thereof  ... (3) Having any property in his possession, custody or control, as bailee, ... agent, ... trustee, ... or officer of any ... association or corporation, ... shall secrete, withhold or appropriate the same to his own use ... ... Steals such property and shall be guilty of larceny. RCW 9.54.010. It is appellant's contention that, at most, the state's case showed receipt by him of the nineteen hundred dollars from the sale of the car, and a failure to account therefor; and, since the intent to appropriate the money and deprive the owner of it was not established, there was not sufficient evidence to prove embezzlement. A similar contention was made in State v. Campbell (1918), 99 Wash. 502, 169 Pac. 968, where the prosecution was under the same statute. A syllabus in that case states the facts and applicable rule concisely: ... In a prosecution for the embezzlement of the proceeds of a note and mortgage delivered to the accused for the purpose of collection, intent to deprive the owner of the property is sufficiently established by the fact that accused sold the note and mortgage to a third person and converted the proceeds to his own use. The following quotation from the opinion amplifies the reasoning summarized in the syllabus (pp. 504, 505): It is next urged that there was no direct and specific evidence tending to prove an intent on the part of appellant to deprive Mrs. Fuchs of her property. No instrument has yet been invented by means of which the inner workings of the human mind may be revealed; hence criminal intent, in the vast majority of cases, is not capable of direct and positive proof. In the absence of an express declaration thereof, a criminal purpose can only be established as an inference from action and conduct  the external manifestations of design. Since, in embezzlement, the necessary effect of the wrongful conversion is to deprive the owner of his property, the act of appropriation gives rise to the inference that the perpetrator intended the inevitable result of his conduct. In this case, the intent to defraud was evidenced by the act of the appellant in selling the note and mortgage to a third person and converting the proceeds to his own use or to the use of Colin Campbell Security Company, instead of faithfully executing his trust by collecting the amount secured by the mortgage and accounting therefor to Mrs. Fuchs.... A stronger case for the appellant-defendant was made in State v. Jakubowski (1913), 77 Wash. 78, 87, 137 Pac. 448, where we said, ... In our statement of the case, we have detailed every salient feature of the evidence, and while it appears to this court as persuasively negativing a criminal intention on the appellant's part, its weight and the credibility of the appellant and his witnesses were for the jury. As we have seen, there was adduced by the state competent evidence tending to prove every element of the crime as charged. The trial court denied the appellant's motion in arrest of judgment and refused to grant a new trial upon conflicting evidence. In such a case, whatever our own opinion as to the weight or preponderance of the evidence, we cannot reverse the action of both the trial court and the jury. To do so would be to invade the province of both. It would be to substitute our judgment for that of the jury as to a question of fact upon conflicting evidence, and our discretion for that reposed by statute in the trial court. `This court has heretofore announced that it will not disturb verdicts of this character, on the ground of alleged insufficiency of evidence, where there is evidence to support the verdict, although it may not be of the most convincing kind. Both the jury and the trial court have the opportunity to hear and see the several witnesses, to note their manner as to apparent candor and truthfulness, and are therefore better prepared to pass upon the credibility of their testimony than is this court with only a bare record of the words spoken by the witnesses. The weight of the evidence having been first passed upon by the jury, and next by the trial judge in denying the motion for new trial, we shall not undertake to say that they were wrong.' State v. Ripley, 32 Wash. 182, 72 Pac. 1036. See, also, State v. Dudman (1922), 119 Wash. 522, 205 Pac. 848. The court instructed the jury (and no error has been assigned to the instruction): I instruct you that the intent to deprive or defraud, which is one of the elements of the offense of grand larceny, as charged in the Indictment in this case, must be proved by competent evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. However, it need not be proved by direct and positive evidence, but the existence of such intent may be inferred from the acts of the parties and the facts and circumstances surrounding them. Instruction No. 5. It is unnecessary to again review the evidence in this case, nor is it our responsibility to weigh it. There was no doubt in the mind of the trial court, nor is their in ours, that the jury was entitled to infer the intent to deprive the Western Conference of Teamsters of the nineteen hundred dollars from the acts (which includes failure to act) of the appellant. The evidence shows that the appellant knew as early as February, 1956, that the nineteen hundred dollars had been deposited in his bank account; that more than a year later it had not been paid over to the owner. The only semblance of an explanation came in the state's case, through the testimony of William F. Devin, as to statements made by the appellant before the grand jury, i.e., that not knowing to whom the car belonged, he had given nineteen hundred dollars in cash to Fred Verschueren, Jr., with instructions to apply it to the proper account. The jury was not obligated to believe that explanation. The appellant was clearly confronted with a prima facie case, and the defense presented did no more than suggest possibilities of what appellant might have done or might have intended to do with the nineteen hundred dollars, by way of explanation of why it had not been paid over to its rightful owner. There is no merit in the assignments of error raising the issue of the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict.