Court Opinion

ID: 9858606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:33:55.562929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:09.388377
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Rehear
There has been seasonably filed herein a petition to rehear on behalf of the plaintiffs in error, which has been answered by the State. After studying the matter again carefully, we have determined the questions raised by this petition, and now will dispose of the same.
■ The petitioners have set forth two grounds in their petition to rehear on which a rehearing is requested. The first ground complains that the charge of the trial court did not téll the jury that they were entitled to add the items of the various checks together so as to make these items total more than one hundred ($100) dollars. The *189petition frankly concedes that this Court has adopted the majority view when we have held that under an action for a fraudulent breach of trust when the various acts were the consequence of a common design or plan or one impulse and that then the whole of the theft or breach of trust might be considered together.
It is still contended by the plaintiffs in error that the evidence goes no further than to establish separate and distinct larcenies, and insists that where, as here, there are two or more distinct larcenies they cannot be aggregated so as to make the value of the property stolen sufficient to constitute grand larceny. But there is an exception to this rule which we adopted in our original opinion, and it is as well recognized as the rule itself.
Of course, as pointed out by the trial judge in his charge to the jury the punishment for fraudulent breach of trust is the same as for larceny. He then defines petit and grand larceny properly to the jury and properly instructs them on these questions. He leaves it fairly to the jury to determine whether or not these parties should be convicted for only petit larceny without telling them they have the right to aggregate the various small items so as to make it grand larceny. This is what is primarily complained of in the present petition.
We think that it was absolutely unnecessary for the trial court to tell them that they might aggregate these items and if they found the defendants guilty then find them guilty of the fraudulent breach of trust so as to make the offense for which they were found guilty come within the punishment for grand larceny. The jury by its verdict showed that they did so aggregate these items and did find the defendants guilty of fraudulent breach of *190trust in an amount exceeding that for which petit larceny is given. This purely presents a factual situation for the jury and the trial court under a case as this where there was proof of these various items, and, as found in our original opinion, the facts clearly showed a conspiracy to do these things over a period of time and well within the statute for fraudulent breach of trust, and thus a fraudulent breach of trust was created which we have heretofore affirmed.
The complaint largely is based upon the failure of the trial judge to charge this and petitioners rely particularly on Crawford v. State, 44 Tenn. 190, wherein this Court held that it was necessary to charge the full law applicable in a criminal case, even though no special request was presented. We think that any possible error that might have been committed herein by not telling the jury that they could aggregate these various items so as to reach a sum greater than petit larceny, if error at all, was harmless error. If it had been charged, there certainly would have been great contention that this was prejudicial error, because it would in effect tell the jury that these men were guilty of the greater offense rather than the lesser. Upon a careful reading of the charge it is very evident that the plaintiffs in error received the benefit of this charge rather than the burden thereof.
The second argument presented in this petition is largely a reargument of issues heretofore considered by this Court in its original opinion. This second ground largely attacks the sufficiency of the indictment. Section 40-1802, T.C.A., is the Section of the Code stating as to what an indictment must consist of. We think that the indictment herein fairly comes within the provisions of *191this Code Section and enables these plaintiffs in error to understand for what they were indicted.
It seems clear to ns that even if the statute of limitations had not run on the various items if they had been charged with petit larceny that the indictment as drawn herein clearly covers all of these things and the present indictment and conviction could he plead if they were indicted under these separate items, because the showing is that these items were made up of various items between the dates of June 1, 1956, and January 31, 1958, the period covering all the items. Such being shown on the face of the indictment is of sufficient information within itself to protect the defendants from prosecution of the separate takings of the same monies. That is to say, the offense for which these defendants were convicted is circumscribed by the period of time alleged in the indictment, and a prosecution for taking the same funds in individual instances would be precluded by a plea of a former conviction.
After fully considering the petition to rehear, the authorities cited pro and con, and re-reading the charge of the court, we are well satisfied that there is no prejudicial error herein, consequently the petition to rehear must be denied.