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4 Kan. 68

McFarland v. State

Supreme Court of Kansas

Decided July 15, 1866

Supreme Court of Kansas · decided 1866-07-15

Criminal Appeal from Wyandotte County. The appellant in this case was tried in Wyandotte county, on an information originally filed against him before the criminal court of Leavenworth county, and taken to Wyandotte for trial on a change of venue.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1866-07-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently March 1972

7 state decisions

20186618701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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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¶1By the Court,

Bailey, J.

¶2The record in this case presents two questions for the consideration of this court, viz :

¶31. Does the information sufficiently charge an offense punishable by the laws of this state ?

¶42. Did the court err in its ruling, as to the admission of evidence, or in its instructions to the jury? . And, first, as to the information. We have no doubt as to the power of the legislature to provide for the punishment of the offense defined by sec. 274, of the crimes and punishment act, which consists, not in stealing property in another state or territory, but in bringing property thus feloniously taken within the limits and jurisdiction of this-state, to the manifest detriment of the public morals-. The original taking may have been a crime against the laws of the state where it was *75committed, but of that the laws of this state take no cognizance; but surely, every civilized community must have the right to prevent its soil and territory from being converted to the vile uses of thieves and robbers, a receptacle of stolen goods, and to protect its citizens against the demoralizing effects of such depraved examples.

¶5The legislature of Kansas has not transcended its legitimate authority in the enactment above cited. That act makes the retaining possession of the stolen property within this state, equivalent to an original act of theft, and declares it may be punished in the same manner as an original larceny. It regards every asportation of the property animo furandi as a new taking, and in this, it but echoes the settled principles of the common law. The act expressly declares that in such a case “the larceny may be charged to hare been committed, and may be indicted and punished, in any county into or through which such property shall hare been brought.'1'1

¶6That is precisely what has been done in the case before us, and we are entirely satisfied as to its sufficiency.

¶7Second, as to the ruling of the court in admitting the evidence of the witness, Baldwin, we think it entirely unexceptionable, from the fact that it was necessary, first to prove the wrongful means by which McFarland came into possession of the property, before he could be punished for its continued wrongful possession.

¶8Hence the several instructions asked for by his counsel, and refused by the court, were properly refused, since all of them are based upon the theory that our courts have no authority to inquire by what criminal *76or wrongful means property was acquired outside the limits of our state.

¶9Judgment affirmed.

All the justices concurring.
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