Court Opinion

ID: 9864924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:17:03.647133+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:41.754354
License: Public Domain

*604Mr. Chief Justice Hilliard
dissenting.
Although I am not satisfied that other points urged by plaintiff in error have been rightly resolved, I comment only upon his contentions: (1) That section 262, chapter 48, ’35 C. S. A., under which the prosecution proceeded, is without application to county commissioners or to their acts in relation to the discharge of their duties; and, (2) that a remark of the court during the trial was materially prejudicial. The statute and indictment are quoted in the opening of the court opinion.
1. County commissioners, three for each county, are constitutional officers. Art. XIV, § 6, Constitution; Robbins v. Board of Commissioners, 50 Colo. 610, 115 Pac. 526. The board of county commissioners is the auditing authority of a county. ’35 C. S. A., c. 45, § 44; Board of Commissioners v. Bloom, 14 Colo. App. 187, 59 Pac. 417; Gregg v. Board of Commissioners, 32 Colo. 357, 76 Pac. 376. “To bind the county, or to make their doings legal, they [county commissioners] must act, not individually, or separately, but collectively as a board.” Robbins v. Board of Commissioners, supra. See, also, People ex rel. v. Carver, 5 Colo. App. 156, 38 Pac. 332.
The statute in question is in form similar to corresponding legislation of many states. In no jurisdiction, as my study convinces, has it been held that the act applies to auditing officers, or to any official not having the “ actual'corporeal possession, control or custody of the thing sought to be transferred or disbursed.” In re Huston, 27 Idaho 231, 147 Pac. 1064. The Idaho court cites and reviews many decisions from other jurisdictions, all holding to the effect that the act is “particularly pointed at treasurers — state, county, township, city — and other officers whose duties are similar, and not at auditors.” State v. Newton, 26 Ohio St. 265. To bring an official within the purview of the statute, it must appear that the money in question came into his possession pursuant to some law, and by virtue of his office. State v. *605Newton, supra. The Ohio decision points ont the whys and wherefores of the statute, and how it applies exclusively to treasurers or other immediate custodians of public funds. In State v. Hall, 126 Mo. 585, 29 S. W. 582, the Supreme Court of Missouri discussed an indictment based on a like statute, and in which it was charged that a “city marshal, and, as such, ex officio collector of the city of Odessa, * * * then and there * * * intrusted with and having the care, custody and control * * * of the said public moneys * *, by him received and taken into his possession and custody by virtue of his said office for safekeeping * * *, did then and there unlawfully, fraudulently and feloniously embezzle, make away with, secrete and convert to his own use,” etc. Determining that defendant there was not authorized to have “possession or control of the city moneys as marshal and ex officio collector,” the court held that the indictment was properly quashed. See, also, State v. Bolin, 101 Mo. 209. In Moore v. State, 53 Neb. 831, 74 N. W. 319, defendant, state auditor, was indicted under a similar statute, and charged with having received and made away with a sum in excess of twenty thousand dollars which he had assumed to collect by virtue of his office. He pleaded guilty, “and then moved in arrest of judgment on the ground that the information charged no crime.” The trial court’s adverse resolution on the motion was reversed by the Nebraska Supreme Court, on the ground that the auditor did not become possessed of the funds by virtue of his office pursuant to law. “To hold that the auditor,” the court said, “is a person charged with the collection, receipt, safekeeping, transfer, or disbursement of the public money, when the law expressly forbids him to receive it or handle it, would certainly go beyond the plain import of the words of the statute, and create a crime by construction in the plainest violation of the law.” This case, and those from Idaho and Ohio already mentioned, treat of the philosophy of the statute in question at length, give lexicographic defi*606nitions, and cite and review many decisions. See, also, 1 Bouvier (Rawle’s 3d Rev.), title Embezzlement, pp. 1004-1006.
Considering the genesis of tbe legislation and the unanimity of decision on tbe point, I cannot think the statute on which the prosecution places reliance is applicable to the charge against plaintiff in error. The intent of the enactment is clear, the wording unambiguous, and, as I believe, its sole purpose was to simplify prosecutions of those charged with the misuse of funds lawfully coming into their manual possession. “Where there is no ambiguity in the words, there is no room for construction. The case must be a strong one indeed, which would justify a court in departing from the plain meaning of words, especially in a penal act, in search of an intention which the words themselves did not suggest. To determine that a case is within the intention of a statute, its language must authorize us to say so. It would be dangerous, indeed, to carry the principle, that a case which is within the reason or mischief of a statute, is within its provisions, so far as to punish a crime not enumerated in the statute, because it is of equal atrocity, or of kindred character, with those which are enumerated. If this principle has ever been recognized in expounding criminal law, it has been in cases of considerable irritation, which it would be unsafe to consider as precedents forming a general rule for other cases.” Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the court, in United States v. Wiltberger, 4 U. S. 574 (5 Wheat. 76), 18-21 L. Ed. 37. “Criminal statutes are, to adopt a word very happily used by Mr. Bishop, inelastic, and cannot by construction be made to embrace cases plainly without the letter though within the reason and policy of the law.” State v. Lovell, 23 Iowa 304. The case of Wright v. People, 104 Colo. 335, 91 P. (2d) 499 (decided since the trial of this case), discounted in the court opinion here, was based upon the section of the statute involved in this prosecution. For the purpose of the decision there (opinion by Mr. Justice *607Bock) we proceeded on the theory that Wright “was an officer or agent within the meaning” of that section, which “charges an offense in the nature of embezzlement,” as said in the opinion. “One of the elements [of embezzlement],” continued Mr. Justice Bock, “is ‘that the accused occupied the designated fiduciary relation, and that the property came into his possession by virtue of his employment or office.’ ” The judgment of conviction against Wright was reversed and his discharge ordered. In nothing essential, as I conceive, is that case distinguishable from the one under review; and, as I have already emphasized, since the accused here did not, and from the nature of his office as fixed by statute, could not, lawfully possess public funds of the county, the charge of “an offense in the nature of embezzlement,” does not lie against him. That the. legislative department only intended to cover situations where governmental agencies were despoiled of their funds by public officials having lawful and immediate custody thereof, unmistakably appears from the title of the enactment. It reads: “An act to prohibit the conversion, loaning or deposit for the benefit of officers, agents, and servants of public funds belonging to the counties, cities, towns, townships and school districts of the state, and to provide punishment * * Laws 1889, p. 297. Prom the nature of things, as I think, nothing inhibited by the statute is possible of accomplishment other than by an official in lawful possession of public funds. Indeed, the authorities hold that the legislation of the kind here was solely conceived to make it a crime for public custodians of public funds to make private use thereof. “The principles of the common law not being found adequate to protect general owners against the fraudulent conversion of property by persons standing in certain fiduciary relations to those who were the subject of their peculations, certain statutes have been enacted, as well in England as in this country, creating new criminal offenses and annexing to them their proper punishments. The general object of these statutes doubtless *608was to define and embrace, as criminal offenses punishable by law, certain cases where, although the moral guilt was quite as great as in larceny, yet the technical objection arising from the fact of a possession lawfully acquired by the party screened him from punishment.” 1 Bouvier, supra, p. 1005.
It is significant, I think, that the only case cited in the court’s discussion of the point is State v. Krugg, 12 Wash. 298, 41 Pac. 126. The prosecution there was of a city treasurer — custodian of the city’s funds, and a typical presentation within the very letter of the statute of Washington, and of ours. How that case could be thought to be pertinent in a prosecution of a county commissioner, member of an auditing body, powerless to act alone, and who by no stretch of interpretation of any statute is authorized to possess public funds “by virtue of his office and pursuant to law” is beyond my comprehension. In my opinion, the motion to quash, timely and adequately interposed by plaintiff in error, should have been granted. The point was urged as well at other appropriate occasions in the course of the trial, and should have received favorable consideration by the court. I fear the trial judge regarded the case as one of “considerable irritation” — so designated by Marshall — but he neglected to heed Marshall’s admonition to give pause lest he err.
2. Contemplating the importance the jury likely at-attached to the witness, Gerardi, sufficiently identified in the court opinion, I am not sure counsel for plaintiff in error was not entitled to propound the question set forth by the court here. It went to the credibility of the witness, and that is a fruitful source of inquiry on cross examination in a criminal prosecution; but assuming the question went somewhat afield, its propounding did not justify the outburst which the record shows the trial judge indulged in the presence of the jury. If, on objection of the district attorney, the judge thought the question an improper one, determination of which was well within his province, he had only to say, the objection is sustained. *609Instead, and as if his personal dignity had been offended by the man on trial — not by his counsel, let it be remembered — he said: “I do not care how many crooked deals he [the witness] and the defendant here or others, may have had, so long as it does not relate to this particular transaction. ’ ’ I cannot think the remark was 1 ‘ casual, ’ ’ as do my associates, and harmless. The very opposite is apparent. Nor is the point answered by the observation of the court here that the judge’s remark “was inspired by the attempt of defendant’s own counsel to inject prejudicial matters into the record.” Counsel’s question to Gerardi, the basis for the court’s conclusion, only contemplated the ascertainment of his conduct in a matter where his honor was important. That the question was improper does not rest in judicial certainty; and whether it was is not presented for our examination. But- assuming that it was altogether improper, the fault was counsel’s, not that of his client, concerning whom the judge gave utterance to damaging implications. The further statement in the opinion in relation to the same matter, that what the trial judge said was “ill advised, ’ ’ is not the answer due from us. It is our office to correct errors, not to complain of them.