Court Opinion

ID: 9701913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:43:23.154905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:30.712344
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
dissenting in part:
I concur in the affirmance of appellant’s convictions, but I would remand for resen-tencing, since in my view the court improperly imposed consecutive sentences for the crimes of larceny and false pretenses. I do not follow the reasoning of my colleagues that one offense required proof of a fact that the other did not. See D.C.Code 1973, § 23-112.
Even when viewed in the abstract, the distinction between such offenses as false pretenses and larceny by trick is so obscure as to have prompted recommendations from prestigious sources that common law crimes against property, with their fine hairline distinctions, be abolished and replaced with all-inclusive offenses. See. e. g., Skantze v. United States, 110 U.S.App.D.C. 14, 17, 288 F.2d 416, 419 (Circuit Judge Bastian, dissenting in part), cert. denied, 366 U.S. 972, 81 S.Ct. 1938, 6 L.Ed.2d 1261 (1961). In the context of this case, the distinction is more than obscure. Here we are dealing with circumstances where property was voluntarily transferred. In order to prove larceny, therefore, the government had to show that the victim intended to pass the property to the appellant for a limited or special purpose only; /. e., that the victim theoretically retained an interest in the property capable of being “taken” within the common law and statutory definition of larceny. At the same time, the government had to show, by proving that false representations were made, that the appellant intended to “take” and keep that interest at the time of the transfer. Without more, therefore, once the larceny was proven, the false pretenses offense was proven as well. Conversely, the government was required to show that appellant did convert the money, in order to show that his initial representations were false or that he obtained something of value.
Both the false pretenses and grand larceny charges were brought to protect the same societal interest, the preservation of personal property against misappropriation. They were based on the same transactions. Proof of one required — and established— proof of the other. Historical and theoretical considerations aside, the fact is that appellant perpetrated but one crime against each of his victims. To punish him twice for that one crime seems to me unfair. I respectfully dissent.