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213 Va. 48

Maye v. Commonwealth

Supreme Court of Virginia

Decided June 12, 1972

Supreme Court of Virginia · decided 1972-06-12

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Code § 18.2-117 provides: If any person comes into the possession as bailee of any . . . vehicle . . . and fail [s] to return the same to the bailor, in accordance with the bailment agreement, he shall be deemed guilty of larceny thereof .... The failure to return to the bailor such . . . vehicle . . . within five days from the time the bailee has agreed in writing to return the same shall be prima facie evidence of larceny by such bailee of such . . . vehicle.”

quoted by 4 later decisions, including United States v. Parker, Molash v. Commonwealth

“A claim that a statute on its face contains no requirement of mens rea or scienter is no ground for holding the statute unconstitutional since such requirement will be read into the statute by the court when it appears the legislature implicitly intended that it must be proved.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including 12 Va. App. 7 - Perkins v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. App. 270 - Darcella Reed v. Commonwealth of Virginia

Relies on Morissette v. United States · Mackay v. Nesbett · United States v. Johnson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1972-06-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 49 later decisions — most recently May 2014 · most notably Sheriff, Washoe County v. Smith (1975), 20 Va. App. 484 - Mayhew v. Commonwealth (1995)

3 federal appellate · 42 state decisions

16019721980199020002010decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Curiam.

¶1 Julian E. Maye (Maye or defendant) waived a trial by jury and was convicted by the trial court of grand larceny after bailment of an automobile in violation of Code § 18.1-163. Maye was sentenced to serve a term of three years in the state penitentiary.

¶2 Maye’s appeal is grounded on the proposition that the statute is unconstitutional. He says that it violates the due process provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the Constitution of the United States and § 8 of Article I of the Constitution of Virginia (1971).

¶3 Code § 18.1-163 provides:

*49 “§ 18.1-163. Failure to Return Such Animal, Aircraft, Vehicle or Boat.—If any person comes into the possession as bailee of any animal, aircraft, vehicle, boat or vessel, and fail to return the same to the bailor, in accordance with the bailment agreement, he shall be deemed guilty of larceny thereof and receive the same punishment, according to the value of the thing stolen, prescribed for the punishment of the larceny of goods and chattels. The failure to return to the bailor such animal, aircraft, vehicle, boat or vessel, within five days from the time the bailee has agreed in writing to return the same shall be prima facie evidence of larceny by such bailee of such animal, aircraft, vehicle, boat or vessel.”

¶4 Maye argues that the failure of the statute to require mem rea or scienter is fatal.

¶5 The distinction between larceny after bailment and the common law offense of larceny is that in the former it is not necessary to allege or prove that the original taking was trespassory. United States v. Closkey, 411 F.2d 1212 (4th Cir.1969).

¶6 A claim that a statute on its face contains no requirement of mem rea or scienter is no ground for holding the statute unconstitutional since such requirement will be read into the statute by the court when it appears the legislature implicitly intended that it must be proved. Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 250 (1952); United States v. Johnson, 419 F.2d 56, 60 (4th Cir. 1969), cert. den., 397 U.S. 1010.

¶7 Affirmed.

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