Sieck v. State
Sieck v. State
Opinion of the Court
The defendant, who is plaintiff in error here, was convicted in the district court for Lancaster county of the crime of obtaining money by false pretenses, and sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary for from one to five years. He has brought the case to this court upon petition in error.
1. The trial court sustained a general demurrer to the defendant’s plea of former jeopardy, and it is now insisted that the ruling was erroneous. The plea alleged
2. The defendant objects to a supposed statement of the county attorney in his argument to the jury. He does not state the place in the bill of exceptions where any such statement as he discusses appears to have been made by the county attorney, and we have not observed any record of such statement to the jury.
The information upon which the defendant was tried contained two counts, one charging larceny of the $230, and the other charging obtaining the same by false pretenses. The jury found defendant guilty of obtaining money under false pretenses, and not guilty of the crime of larceny. It is now contended that the evidence will not support the charge of obtaining money by false pretenses; that if any crime was committed it was larceny. Charles Strelow testified: “Q. What did the men do after they hitched their horses? A. They came in, and he says, ‘I got here something for you.’ Q. Who was he talking to? A. To me, and — what is it? ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I am the sheriff and I take you for murdering a man 30 years ago/ * * ppen pe sai¿, qf you can give us $500 cash bond, probably we will let you go.’ Well, we agreed to that, but I said I did not know how much I have. ‘Well, how much you will have?’ ‘Well, I don’t know,’ I say. And I spoke that over with my brother, and we agreed, me and my brother, to give him that, what we had. That gave us a chance until Monday, he said we can come in Monday and you get your money back.”
This evidence is substantially without contradiction, and establishes, it is contended, that the owners of the money did not intend to part with the title, and consented only to part with the possession of the money until the following Monday, and as the defendant did not obtain the property in the money itself, but only possession thereof, by the representation made, he was not guilty of obtaining money • — that is, the title and ownership thereof. — by false pretenses, but if defendant intended to afterwards convert
The same acts may constitute two or more different crimes, and there is no principle of law or public policy in our state that will forbid the legislature to make the act of obtaining the possession of the money or property of another by false pretenses, and with intent to cheat or defraud such person “of the same,” constitute the crime of obtaining by false pretenses, although the person so defrauded did not at the time consent to the transfer of the title and property in the money, but supposed that the same money or a like amount would be returned to him. The fact that the defendant may have been guilty of larceny also is immaterial. If his intention and purpose are to obtain the property or money and convert it to his own use, and so cheat and defraud “such person * * * of the same,” and he uses false pretenses to accomplish that result, and does obtain the money thereby, this is within the letter and spirit of the act, and there is nothing in the law or public policy of this state that prevents us from so construing it.
Affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Frank J. Sieck v. State of Nebraska
- Status
- Published