In re McLean
In re McLean
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Wilbur McLean, having been prosecuted upon a charge of grand larceny and sentenced to the penitentiary, asks to be discharged by habeas corpus upon the ground that the verdict against him was so indefinite as to be absolutely void. The information charged the theft of wearing apparel worth more than twenty dollars. The verdict read:
“We, the jury impaneled and sworn in the above-entitled case, do upon our oath find the defendant, Wilbur McLean, guilty of larceny, and find the value of the property taken to be twenty-eight (28.00).”
The petitioner claims that the expression “twenty-eight (28.00) ” is meaningless for want of some word or character to indicate to what it refers. Of a similar question it was said in Hunt v. Smith, 9 Kan. 137:.
“In legal contemplation land can not be assessed, appraised, or valued, nor can compensation or damages be awarded therefor, except in money. . . . Dollars are the legal money units of this country, made so by the laws of the United States. . . . Hence, whenever figures are used intending to represent money, such figures must, of course, be understood to represent ‘dollars,’ unless a different intention is clearly expressed. The point or dot, resembling a period in*854 punctuation, separating certain figures on the right from those on the left, is the decimal point. It makes the figures on the fight decimals of a unit of whatever is intended to be expressed by those on the left. Those on the left, as we have already seen, are intended to represent dollars, hence those on the right must represent decimals of dollars. As only two figures on the right are thus separated from the others, these two figures must represent hundredths of dollars; or, in other words, ‘cents.’ This is well settled by almost universal usage everywhere in the United States.” (p. 152.)
Some courts hold that this rule does not apply to the record of a judgment, owing to the high degree of certainty there required, but the great weight of authority is to the contrary. (1 Black Judg., § 118; Snow v. West, [Utah, 1910] 110 Pac. 52; Dickens v. Crane, 33 Kan. 344.) The omission to insert the word “dollars,” or the equivalent mark, is held not fatal to a civil verdict. (16 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 475, note.)
In this state obvious omissions in a verdict may be supplied by interpretation, even in criminal cases. (The State v. Wade, 56 Kan. 75; The State v. Pugh, 75 Kan. 792. See, also, O’Docharty v. State, [Tex. Crim. App. 1900] 57 S. W. 657.) In the present case there is no room for doubt as to what the jury meant, and the effect of what they said is the same as though they had added the word “dollars.”
The petitioner also contends that the verdict is void on the ground that it fails to comply with the statute reading:
“Upon the trial of any indictment or information for any offense, where by law there may be conviction of different degrees of such offense, the jury, if they convict the defendant, shall specify in their verdict of what degree of the offense they find the defendant, guilty.” (Crim. Code, § 239.)
A disregard of this statute does not render the sentence void, or justify a resort to habeas corpus. (The
In In re Howard,, 72 Kan. 273, a judgment sentencing a defendant to the penitentiary until discharged by law showed merely that he had pleaded guilty to grand larceny, without indicating anything further as to the character of the charge. As the maximum imprisonment for some forms of grand larceny is five years, and for others seven,- it was held that the judgment did not show which period applied, and was therefore void. There are manifest reasons why a judgment should be required to be complete in itself that do not apply in
The petitioner is remanded.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- In re Wilbur McLean
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- Syllabus
- SYLLABUS BY THE COURT. 1. Verdict — Not Rendered Indefinite by Omission of Word, or Mark for, “Dollars.” Where numbers or figures are used in connection with a statement of value they are to be understood as referring to dollars unless a different intention appears. This rule applies to a statement in a verdict in a larceny case of the value of the stolen property. The omission to insert the word “dollars,” or the corresponding mark, does not render the verdict indefinite. 2. -Larceny — Value More Than Twenty Dollars — Grand Larceny. To say in a verdict that a defendant is guilty of larceny of goods worth more than twenty dollars is equiva- • .lent to saying he is guilty of grand larceny. 3. - Interpretation — Information. . The information may be looked to for the purpose of interpreting a verdict in a criminal case. Specification by Jury of Degree of Guilt. The re-4. quirement of the statute that, where there may be a conviction of different degrees of an offense,, the jury must specify of which degree they find the defendant guilty, is satisfied by a verdict which can apply to but one of the offenses or degrees charged in the information, although its language might also fit 'other offenses or degrees that are not there charged.