Court Opinion

ID: 9671335
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:34:41.785376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:09.350828
License: Public Domain

WOODLEY, Presiding Judge
(dissenting).
The offense charged was not one which the appellant, acting alone, could commit. He stands convicted for having acted to*679gether with Putney who was alleged and shown to be the Administrator of the Currie Estate. There was no allegation in the indictment to this effect but the evidence shows that the appellant was the Judge of the Probate Court who appointed Putney as administrator. As Probate Judge he was charged with the responsibility of seeing that Putney performed his duties, and shared with Putney the duty of preserving the property of the estate, that it might be delivered to those lawfully entitled to receive it and to no one else.
The indictment alleged that Putney and the appellant acting together as principals converted to their own use $10,000 in money which was part of the property of the Currie Estate. The court’s charge properly instructed the jury to the.effect that proof of conversion of $50 or more of the money would be sufficient.
The theory upon which the conclusion is reached that the Judge of the Probate Court was an accomplice rather than a principal to the conversion of a part of the property of the Currie Estate is that the offense was committed at the bank and was complete when the administrator “formed the intent to use the money for his private personal use and did so use it.”
As to the $5000 belonging to the estate which, pursuant to the conspiracy, finally was appropriated to the use of the Probate Judge, there is no evidence or suggestion that the administrator at any time had the intent to use any part of this $5000 for his private personal use, or that he did so use it.
The contention that the appellant was not a principal in the commission of the offense is quite similar to that we overruled in Parnell v. State, 170 Tex.Cr.R. 30, 339 S.W.2d 49.
This is not a simple case where thieves break in and steal property that is in the possession of its owner. Here the door was open by reason of the positions of trust occupied by the conspirators and, in violation of such trust and of the statute, property of others entrusted to their care and custody was converted to their own use and benefit.
As in Parnell v. State, supra, the offense was not committed by a single act.
The money belonging to the Currie Estate was under the control of the administrator and was in his possession. He had the power to use or convert it, but no lawful right to do so without an order of the Judge of the Probate Court.
The administrator retained possession of the $5000 that was appropriated to the personal use of the appellant until it was so converted and appropriated as the appellant and the administrator had agreed.
There was evidence to the effect that the money deposited in the Tierra Grande Inc. account was withdrawn under the appellant’s directions beginning the next day for his personal use or benefit.
The intent that the funds of the estate be converted to their own use was complete when the judge signed an order and the administrator accepted and acted upon it, the agreement being that $5000 of the amount would go to the judge. The check by which the $10,000 was withdrawn from the checking account of the estate and deposited to the personal checking account of the administrator shows on its face that the court’s order was its basis. It bore the notation “One-half attorney’s fees, one-half expenses of estate as per court order December 19, 1960.”
The appellant made the fraudulent order which authorized the withdrawal under the unlawful conspiracy, and it was accepted. He directed the administrator where his $5000 was to be placed. He was present as that term is used in reference to the law of principals when the offense was committed.
Suppose that the administrator had had the $10,000 belonging to the estate in cash in his pocket and, having obtained the order, had left half of it at a hiding place designated by the judge where he later found it!
Could it be said that the judge was not a principal because he was not present at the *680hiding place when the money was left there for him?
Stripped of the devious means used to cast an air of legitimacy upon the transaction and to conceal their crime and avoid its consequences, the supposed case is in essence the case before us.
Suppose that having drawn the $10,000 check, the administrator had obtained in cash the part which it was agreed would go to the appellant and had carried it to the appellant. Would this Court reverse because the appellant was not with the administrator when the $10,000 check was drawn ?
As we said in Parnell v. State, supra:
“There is no settled mode in which appropriation of money or property of the principal by the officer authorized to receive and handle it must take place. It may occur in numberless ways, and the appropriation consummated in any manner capable of effecting it.
“In many classes of cases the question as to what acts are sufficient to show an appropriation is one of great difficulty.
“So long as the person entrusted with the money or property of another acts in accordance with the terms of his trust in reference thereto he is not guilty of embezzlement. He may deposit the money of his in the bank in his own name without being guilty of appropriating it. But a withdrawal by him for purposes of his own constitutes appropriation, 16 Tex.Jur. 70; or constitutes evidence of conversion. 16 Tex.Jur. 38, 39.”
Holt v. State, 144 Tex.Cr.R. 62, 160 S.W.2d 944, is a case where a conviction for theft by false pretext from one Goolsbee was affirmed, Holt having been present and participated when false representations were made to Goolsbee at Warren, in Tyler County, but was not present when his co-conspirator thereafter extracted $20,000 in money from Goolsbee at Beaumont, in Jefferson County.
This Court declined to follow the view that would narrow the commission of the crime to the very minute the money was delivered and said:
“We think the correct view is that the time of the crime of theft by false pretext extended from the beginning of the transactions when appellant first visited the Goolsbees until their loot was divided and that the place was in Warren, Tyler County, as well as near the hotel in Beaumont, Jefferson County.”
Had the appellant’s order been legally proper and genuine, the drawing and cashing of the $10,000 check would not have constituted conversion of property of the estate, or any other offense. It was, however, a fraudulent and unlawful order. Half of the money was to be and was converted to the use of the appellant. There remained the securing of the safety of the conspirators from detection by proper entry in the records of the order of the appellant as probate judge authorizing the pretended attorney’s fees without disclosing that the money was to be shared equally with him, and the approval of the administrator’s account.
It is true that the probate judge could not commit the offense alone. It is equally true that without the judge’s participation the administrator could not have committed it with any degree of hope that he could escape detection and punishment, and would not have shared the money converted with the judge.
The parties acted together as principals, as did the parties in Parnell v. State. If the appellant was not present as that term is used in applying the law of principals, Parnell was not present when the conversion for which he was convicted as a principal occurred.
If the majority is correct in holding that the appellant was an accomplice to the conversion and not a principal, Parnell was not a principal though he was convicted as such and the conviction was affirmed.
For cases where the defendant whose conviction as a principal was affirmed, though he was not at the time in position to *681have committed the offense himself and was doing nothing at the time the offense was committed by his co-conspirator other than waiting some distance away to carry out his part in the conspiracy, see White v. State, 154 Tex.Cr.R. 489, 228 S.W.2d 165; Gonzales v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 350 S.W.2d 553; Hill v. State, 135 Tex.Cr.R. 567, 121 S.W.2d 996; Stubblefield v. State, Tex.Cr. App., 334 S.W.2d 150.
The holding of the majority that the appellant was not a principal to the conversion will preclude another trial upon the indictment, hence there is no occasion to consider other claims of error.
I respectfully dissent.