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10 Mass. 154

Commonwealth v. Dewitt

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1813-05-15

The defendant, being indicted for a larceny, was tried during this term before Sewall, J., and, being convicted, he moved for a new trial, for the misdirection of the judge. The judge reported the evidence that the goods were stolen in Boston, in the county of Suffolk, and brought from thence to this place by two persons, who had been committed on the same charge, but had escaped from prison.

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Decided 1813-05-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 1972

9 state decisions

2018131820183018401850186018701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Sewall, J.,

¶1said that he had entertained some doubts at the trial, and wished to have the question saved. Upon further consideration, those doubts, which had been excited by suggestions arising from technical nicety, were dissipated.

¶2The whole Court agreed that the motion must be overruled and the defendant was sentenced, (a)

¶3ADDITIONAL NOTE.

¶4[A person is guilty of larceny, in Vermont, who brings into that state property feloniously taken in Canada. State vs. Bartlett, 31 Verm. 650.

¶5A foreigner, who, after committing larceny abroad, comes into New York, and brings the stolen property with him, is punishable as for larceny committed in the state. — The People vs. Burke, 11 Wend. 129. — F. H-]

¶6 [This decision goes upon the principle that the possession of the goods stolen by the thief is a larceny in every country into which he carries the goods, because, the legal possession still remaining in the true owner, every moment’s continuance of the trespass and felony amounts, in legal consideration, to a new caption and asportation.— 1 Chitty, Cr. L. 178.—2 East, 771.— Stark. Crim. Pl. 2. — 7 Coke, Bulwer's case. — 2 Hale, 163. — Arch. Crim. PI. 5. — 3 Inst. 113.— See State vs. Merrick, 1 Apple, 398.—Ed.]

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