Court Opinion

ID: 9723258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:08:53.516789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:46.101271
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Gunn specially concurring: I concur in the result in this case, but do not think the opinion goes far enough. I do not believe that the defendant can be convicted of embezzlement under the facts as they appear in the record. Clearly, the Statute of Limitations has run. The majority opinion and the dissent seem to be under the impression that by an equitable fiction the time when the alleged conversion took place has been brought within the three-year Statute of Limitations. The equitable fiction of the last money in being the first money out has no application to criminal cases, and certainly not so as to extend the three-year limitation to more than six years. The Spalding case, referred to in the dissent, while it contains language from which it might be inferred the equitable trust could be implied in an embezzlement case, yet it is clear that in that case there was an actual extraction and taking of funds and an attempt made to cover it up by taking a note. What was decided there was concerning the actual taking, — an embezzlement. In this case there has been no taking. Barrett has not profited a cent. And to make a man constructively guilty of a crime upon a theory that has been only heretofore applied in equitable cases is not in consonance with our administration of the criminal law. I think the defendant should be discharged.