Opinion ID: 2172607
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: The possession of the funds allegedly stolen.

Text: Appellant's fourth issue claims that the monies allegedly stolen, were taken from a safe in his possession and therefore, the crime committed, if any, was embezzlement rather than larceny. This issue presents the dilemma that Judge Prescott in his concurring opinion, prophesied would result from the decision of this Court in Nolan v. State, 213 Md. 298, 131 A.2d 851, and discussed in 18 Md. L.R. 235. The Court of Special Appeals after an able discussion of the authorities decided this issue against the appellant and we agree with the holding of that Court but not with its reasons. The entire argument of the appellant rests upon his contention that the common law of larceny already is burdened with a number of aberrant doctrines; it does not need another. Specifically, it can do without a doctrine that theft by a corporate or public officer of funds to which he alone has access and which are received by virtue of his office is larceny. He further argues, that the facts in this case establish that the receptacle involved, the Town's safe, was itself in his possession as opposed to that of the Town. Since this was true, the funds, when placed in the safe by his secretaries or by him, remained in his constructive possession, so that any subsequent abstraction by him from the safe would be embezzlement, and not larceny. The entire argument of the appellant is predicated upon a false premise, that is, the exclusive possession in himself of the safe and the funds therein. The record, however, is to the contrary. The safe, itself, at least after the formation of appellant's first law partnership was kept in the office of his partner's secretary who did most of the Town's collections and bookkeeping and was not in the office of the appellant. She, in fact, kept the Town's receipt books on her desk and each morning opened the safe. Following the formation of appellant's second law partnership the safe was kept not in the office of the appellant but in a room just off the partnership reception room where there was a secretary. The office manager of the partnership sometimes handled Town business and on Saturdays when, apparently, only some of the partners and secretaries would be present, collected town taxes and put them in the desk drawer until the necessary bookkeeping entries could be made by a secretary of the firm. All secretaries of the firm and all partners had access to this safe and the firm's funds were also kept therein. Moreover, apparently as the business of the Town increased, it hired several employees to do the Town's work and, although they worked in the offices of appellant's law partnership, they were not on its payroll. We agree that, two elements necessary to constitute the crime of larceny in addition to the felonious intent are a physical taking and asportation of the thing taken from the actual or constructive possession of the owner. Brown v. State, 236 Md. 505, 513; 204 A.2d 532, but we find no violations of this rule in the decision of the Court of Special Appeals in this case. Clearly, of course, under our decision in Nolan v. State, supra , the defendant cannot be guilty of the larceny of money in his actual possession but the evidence in this case discloses that little if any of the money here involved ever came into the actual possession of the defendant except by the commission of the crime charged. The collection of Town funds by an employee paid by the Town or by the law office secretaries authorized to make such collections and placed in a receptacle owned by the Town without, in any way, passing first through the hands of the appellant, gave actual possession to the Town and the fact that the receptacle was located in the office of a partnership used also as the offices of the Town would be insufficient to give actual possession to the appellant. He answers this point by arguing that the funds, when placed in the safe by his secretaries or by him, remained in his constructive possession, so that any subsequent abstraction by him from the safe would be embezzlement and not larceny but he cites no authority for the proposition that an alleged larcenist under circumstances such as this can rely on the doctrine of constructive possession so as to claim that no trespass was committed by him when he later abstracted funds belonging to his employer from a receptacle owned by the employer. In Nolan our predecessors adopted certain of the English cases maintaining the various distinctions between embezzlement and larceny. In none of them is there any authority for extending the established doctrine of constructive possession to any alleged wrongdoer not in actual possession and the case of Reg. v. Wright, Dears & B. Crown Cas. 431, 441, 442, cited with approval therein shows that the accused must have actual possession before he can successfully maintain that his crime was embezzlement rather than larceny. In that case, the safe, furnished by the employer, was located in the home of the defendant used as the branch office of a bank whose main office was in another town. He took money of the bank from the safe after it had been placed therein and was convicted of larceny from the constructive possession of his employer, Judge Crowder, one of the concurring judges saying, The fact that the prisoner had the entire control over the premises makes no difference. If he took the money from the safe for the purposes of the bank, he did so as a part of his duty; but if he took it for his own purposes he was guilty of larceny. The reliance by him upon Morgan v. Commonwealth, 47 S.W.2d 543 (Ky. 1932) is misplaced. There the Court found exclusive and actual possession of the receptacle and the funds stolen by the defendant to have been always in the defendant, the Court stating at page 544 as follows: Although the company had the right to demand the funds of him at any time, and although the company could potentially enter the safe by opening the sealed envelope and apprising itself of the combination, yet it was not intended by the company that it should interefere with appellant's control and possession of the contents of this safe and the funds of the company unless and until some condition which had not occurred in this case at the time of the conversion had come to pass. It is quite manifest that the possession of these funds at the time they were converted was in the appellant and that it had not yet become that of the Western Union. This being true, the conversion amounted to an embezzlement and not larceny. The factual situation presented in Morgan is not presented by the record here. The trial court as an advisory instruction to the jury stated that a taking from the possession of the Town of Leonardtown was a necessary element of the crime of larceny charged under count four of the indictment. There was evidence to support this instruction and it was a correct statement of the law. There was no request by the appellant that the term possession be further defined. For these reasons we hold that the trial court properly denied appellant's motion for judgment of acquittal as to the larceny count and that the trial court correctly advised the jury as to the law of larceny applicable to the facts presented in evidence. Judgments affirmed. Barnes, J., dissenting: I dissent because, in my opinion, the evidence in the case indicates that the defendant (1) was not guilty under count 2 of embezzlement by a clerk, servant or agent as defined in Code, Article 27, Section 129 in that there was a fatal variance between the allegations of count 2 which names the Town of Leonardtown as owner of the money allegedly embezzled by way of the less cash transactions and the evidence which establishes that the local banks owned the money, and (2) could not legally be guilty under count 4 of larceny in that the evidence showed that the defendant and not the Town had possession of the safe and its contents so that the crime, if any, would have been embezzlement and not larceny contrary to the advisory instructions of the trial court to the jury. I also dissent from a new theory (of both law and fact) used in the majority opinion to sustain the conviction in this case under count 4 in that it is not only unsound, in my opinion, but was not raised or decided in the trial court, was not decided by the Court of Special Appeals and was not briefed or argued before us. It is necessary in considering this important case  important to the defendant because his liberty and professional future are at stake and to the criminal law of the State because of the intricate legal questions involved  to determine precisely what crimes are charged in the indictment. As pointed out by the majority, there were four counts in the indictment presented by the grand jury. Count 1 charged the defendant with the misappropriation of money of the Town under circumstances which would make it the crime of embezzlement by a public official as defined by Article 27, Section 138. This count was removed from the consideration of the jury by the direction of the trial court. Count 2 charged the misappropriation of money of the Town under circumstances which would make it the crime of embezzlement by a clerk, servant or agent as defined by Article 27, Section 129. Count 3 charged that the misappropriation of money of the Town under circumstances which would make it the crime of larceny after trust as defined by Article 27, Section 353. This count 3 was removed from the consideration of the jury by the direction of the trial court. Count 4 charged that the misappropriation of the money of the Town occurred under circumstances that would make it the common law crime of grand larceny. It is clear that to sustain convictions, the evidence must be such that the jury could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes charged in the indictment. It is immaterial to the consideration of this case, that the evidence might possibly have been sufficient to have sustained a conviction of other crimes not charged in the counts of the indictment submitted to the jury. See State v. Wheatley, 192 Md. 44, 50, 63 A.2d 644, 647 (1949).