Opinion ID: 1134970
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The reward cases

Text: The cases in the second category hold that a defendant who takes property for the purpose of claiming a reward for finding it has the requisite intent to permanently deprive. Again the courts invoke differing rationales for this holding. [6] One line of these cases is exemplified by Commonwealth v. Mason (1870) 105 Mass. 163. The defendant took possession of a horse that had strayed onto his property, with the intent to conceal it until the owner offered a reward and then to return it and claim the reward, or until the owner was induced to sell it to him for less than its worth. The court affirmed a conviction of larceny on the theory that the requisite felonious intent was shown because the defendant intended to deprive the owner of a portion of the value of the property. ( Id. at p. 168.) The court did not explain this theory further, but later cases suggested that the portion of the value in question was the right to claim a rewardordinarily less than the property's full valuefor its return. Thus in Slaughter v. State (Ga.1901) 113 Ga. 284, 38 S.E. 854, the defendants were private detectives who induced an employee to steal merchandise from a store, then returned the merchandise to the store owner as evidence of the thefts and persuaded him to pay them a reward if they could catch the thief. The court affirmed a conviction of larceny, reasoning that It is not necessary to constitute larceny, that the property should be itself permanently appropriated. It is sufficient if the property be taken and carried away with the intent to appropriate any pecuniary right or interest therein, as where it is taken with the expectation of claiming a reward for its return. ( Id. at p. 855; accord, Fort v. State, supra, 82 Ala. 50, 2 So. 477 [... deprivation of the ownership of property is one of the essentials of larceny. But is it necessary that the intent shall be to deprive the owner of the whole property taken? Is not the animus furandi as manifestly shown when the intent is simply to deprive him of a partial, though unsevered, interest in the property?].) Another line of cases in this category also noted the taker's intent to appropriate part of the value of the property, but went on to emphasize a different rationale, i.e., that the taker had made the return of the property contingent on the offer of a satisfactory reward, and if the contingency did not materialize the taker would keep the property. A leading case of this type is Berry v. State (1877) 31 Ohio St. 219. The defendants took two horses from a stable without their owner's consent, with the intent to conceal them until the owner offered a reward, and then to return them and claim the reward. The court affirmed a conviction of larceny, rejecting the defendants' contention that their intent was to deprive the owner only temporarily of his property. As its principal reason, the court stressed that the defendants' intent to return the horses was contingent on the offer of a reward: in this case there was an utter absence of intention to restore the property unless money was paid for its restoration. There was no evidence tending to show a purpose to return the property unless a reward was offered therefor.[ [7] ] A return, at all events, was not designed. It is true, that all parties concerned in the taking contemplated and expected that the owner would offer such reward; but the purpose to return was founded wholly on the contingency that a reward would be offered, and unless the contingency happened the conversion was complete.  ( Berry v. State, supra, at p. 227, italics added; accord, Dunn v. State (Tex.Crim.App.1895) 34 Tex.Crim. 257, 30 S.W. 227 [defendant took horse from corral with intent to conceal it until owner offered reward].) The same rationale has been invoked when the defendant sought not a reward but a ransom. Thus in State v. Hauptmann (N.J. 1935) 115 N.J.L. 412, 180 A. 809, the defendant kidnapped the, infant son of Charles Lindbergh. The child was wearing a sleeping suit when he was abducted. In preliminary negotiations with Condon, Lindbergh's representative, the defendant agreed to send Condon the sleeping suit as evidence that Condon was dealing with the right party; the negotiations continued, the defendant sent the sleeping suit to Condon, and Condon thereupon accepted the defendant's ransom terms. The child was later found dead. The defendant was convicted of murder and of larceny of the sleeping suit, and the New Jersey high court affirmed. On appeal, the defendant contended inter alia that there was no larceny because his intent was not to keep the sleeping suit permanently but to return it in order to advance the ransom negotiations. The court's rationale for rejecting the claim was the same as that of the reward cases discussed above: the intent to return should be unconditional; and, where there is an element of coercion or of reward, as a condition of return, larceny is inferable. ( State v. Hauptmann, supra, 180 A. at p. 819.) The court acknowledged that the sleeping suit was surrendered without payment; but, on the other hand, it was an initial and probably essential step in the intended extortion of money, and it seems preposterous to suppose that it would ever have been surrendered except as a result of the first conversation between Condon and the holder of the suit, and as a guaranty that there was no mistake as to the `right party.' It was well within the province of the jury to infer that, if Condon had refused to go on with the preliminaries, the sleeping suit would never have been delivered. In that situation, the larceny was established. ( Id, at pp. 819-820, italics added.) The only relevant California cases we have found are two that fall into the reward/ransom category. They contribute little, however, to the rationales articulated in the prior cases. Thus in People v. Stay (1971) 19 Cal. App.3d 166, 96 Cal.Rptr. 651, the defendant made a business of taking shopping carts from streets and sidewalks near supermarkets where they had been left by store customers, and then offering to return the carts if the stores paid him a finder's fee of 10 times the going rate charged by legitimate cart retrieval services; when a store refused to payas most didthe defendant removed all indicia of ownership from the carts and sold them to smaller stores. Convicted of grand theft, the defendant argued on appeal that the evidence showed no intent to deprive the stores permanently of the carts because his purpose was to take them only in order to collect the reasonable charge to which a finder is entitled by statute for saving and preserving lost property. (Civ.Code, § 2080.) Affirming the conviction, the Court of Appeal held that (1) the carts were not lost within the meaning of the finder's statute, and (2) the evidence supported the trial court's finding that the defendant `intended to permanently deprive the owners of these carts if they didn't pay his expenses, plus a reward.' (19 Cal.App.3d at p. 175, 96 Cal.Rptr. 651.) The case is not helpful, however, because the Court of Appeal does not state a rationale to support its holding on the intent issue. Instead, it simply reiterates the facts ( People v. Stay, supra, 19 Cal.App.3d at p. 176, 96 Cal.Rptr. 651) and concludes broadly that His intent to permanently deprive the markets of their property is reflected in defendant's high-handed method of operation and obvious lack of good faith in acting under the finder's statute. ( Ibid. ) Yet one of the facts emphasized by the Court of Appeal that the defendant well knew the markets would not pay the exorbitant finder's fee he demanded ( ibid. )made a sham of the defendant's claim that he took the carts only to collect the fee. The second California case is In re Albert A. (1996) 47 Cal.App.4th 1004, 55 Cal.Rptr.2d 217. The minor defendant took the bicycle of a minor named Ali by threat of force, saying he intended to keep it until his own bicycle, which had allegedly been stolen, by a relative of Ali's, was returned to him. The juvenile court believed that was in fact the defendant's motive, but also believed he intended to keep Ali's bicycle `for as long as it would take' to recover his own bicycle. ( Id. at p. 1007, 55 Cal.Rptr.2d 217.) For this reason the court found the defendant intended to permanently deprive Ali of the bicycle; the court concluded that the defendant had therefore committed robbery, and ruled that a prior order of wardship would continue in effect. Affirming the order, the Court of Appeal agreed that the defendant had the requisite intent to permanently deprive. The court's theory appears to have been an extension of the contingency rationale of the prior cases. The court reasoned not just that the return of the property was contingent on a future eventthe recovery of the defendant's own bicyclebut that the contingency was so remote and unlikely to occurthe court analogized it to winning the lotterythat it could be disregarded as a matter of law: The intent to return property under these circumstances is tantamount to an intent to permanently deprive the victim of his or her property because the intent to return the property is too tenuous and illusory to have any legal effect. ( In re Albert A., supra ,. 47 Cal.App.4th at p. 1009, 55 Cal.Rptr.2d 217.) Whatever its theoretical validity, this seems an exaggerated view of the facts of the case. [8] Finally, Perkins again proposes the rationale of a substantial risk of permanent loss. He reasons that a taking with intent to hold for reward creates such a risk because the intent will result in a permanent loss to the owner if he fails to offer or give a reward for the return of the property. (Perkins, supra, at p. 330.) Indeed, even the offer or payment of a reward may not eliminate the risk because the defendant still has an incentive to keep the property rather than expose himself to detection by returning it.