State v. Riggs

Citations

• 8 Idaho 630
• 70 P. 947
• 1902 Ida. LEXIS 59

Syllabus

<p>Instructions — Error in Giving and Refusing to Give. — It is error for the court to instruct the jury that if the defendant wrongfully and unlawfully and without the knowledge and consent of the owner, or any person, who could give such consent, but as a trespasser and wrongdoer took, led or drove away the property described in the information, not then intending to steal the same, but that thereafter while still in such wrongful possession of said property he feloniously appropriated the same to his own use, such taking and appropriation constitute upon the part of the defendant the crime of larceny, as fully and completely as though such felonious intention had existed in the defendant at the first taking of such property. Where the facts warrant it, as in this case, it is error for the court to refuse to give an instruction requested by the defendant, to wit: If the jury believes from the evidence that the defendant had no felonious intent to steal the property at the time he took it, then you must acquit, even if you believe he subsequently conceived the intent to appropriate it. Where the evidence wholly fails to show any felonious intent on the part of the accused at the time he takes possession of the property alleged to have been stolen, it is insufficient upon which to base a verdict of grand larceny.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the court.)</p>