Postage stamps belonging to the United States are personal
property, within the meaning of Rev.Stat. § 5456, which enacts that
"Every person who robs another of any kind or description of
personal property belonging
Page 170 U. S. 403
to the United States, or feloniously takes and carries away the
same, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five thousand
dollars, or by imprisonment at hard labor not less than one year
nor more than ten years, or by both such fine and imprisonment,"
and may be made the subject of larceny.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff in error seeks to reverse his conviction of the
crime of stealing certain postage stamps on the 25th day of April,
1894, being the property of the United States, upon which
conviction he was sentenced to be imprisoned for the term of two
years. The indictment against him was found in the District Court
of the United States for the District of Kentucky, Owensborough
Division, in the June term, 1895, and contained five counts. It was
draw under section 5456 of the Revised Statutes. The first count
alleged in substance that on the 25th day of April, 1894 at
Hardinsburg, in the district mentioned, the defendant did
feloniously steal, take, and carry away from a building then and
there used as a post office building by the United States, certain
postage stamps of the United States, of various denominations
mentioned in the indictment, and of the value named ($163.12), and
which stamps were then and there the personal property of the
United States of America.
The second count was the same, except that it alleged the
stealing to have been from the possession of Thomas McClure, the
postmaster, etc.
The third and fourth counts alleged the stamps to have been the
property of the post office department, and the fifth count alleged
that he had the stamps in his possession with intent to convert
them to his own use, the same having theretofore
Page 170 U. S. 404
been stolen from the United States by some other person, which
the defendant well knew.
Upon being arraigned, the defendant filed a demurrer to each
count of the indictment, which was sustained as to the third and
fourth counts and overruled as to the others.
His counsel upon the trial again raised the question as to the
validity of the first and second counts, duly excepting to the
decision of the court in holding that he might be convicted upon
either of them.
The judge charged the jury that the defendant could not be
convicted under the first, second, and fifth counts together; that,
if convicted upon either the first or second count, or both, he
could not be convicted under the fifth.
He was found guilty as charged in the first and second counts,
but the jury said nothing in their verdict as to the fifth
count.
The same objections to the conviction that were taken below are
now urged upon us by counsel for the plaintiff in error as grounds
for the reversal of the judgment.
Section 5456 of the Revised Statutes, under which the indictment
was drawn, reads as follows:
"Every person who robs another of any kind or description of
personal property belonging to the United States, or feloniously
takes and carries away the same, shall be punished by a fine of not
more than five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment at hard labor
not less than one nor more than ten years, or by both such fine and
imprisonment."
The contention on the part of the plaintiff in error is that, in
order to sustain an indictment under this statute, (1) there must
be a felonious and forcible taking of personal property, and (2)
the property must be the subject of larceny, which postage stamps
belonging to the government are not.
1. There are two distinct offenses mentioned in the statute.
One is the offense of robbery, the legal and technical meaning
of which is well known. It is a forcible taking, or a taking by
putting the individual robbed in fear.
There is also set forth in the statute the crime of feloniously
taking and carrying away any kind or description of personal
Page 170 U. S. 405
property belonging to the United States. This is a distinct and
separate offense from that of robbery. If the statute required the
taking to be forcible in all cases, the language providing against
the felonious taking and carrying away of the personal property of
the United States would be surplusage, the forcible taking being
already implied and included in the use of the word "rob." But, in
addition to robbery, the offense of feloniously (not forcibly)
taking the personal property of the United States is created. The
indictment herein comes under the latter head.
2. The objection that the postage stamps are not the subject of
larceny while in the possession and being the property of the
United States we think is also untenable.
The language used in the statute is much broader and covers more
ground than the common law definition of larceny, and it is also
more comprehensive than the statute of 1790. 1 Stat. 112, 116. "Any
kind or description of personal property" is an exceedingly broad
designation. It is difficult to imagine language which would be
plainer in its meaning, or which would more certainly embrace
property such as is the subject of this indictment.
Postage stamps, while in the hands of the government, ready to
be sold and used, are most surely its personal property. Although
section 5413 provides that the words "obligation or other security
of the United States" shall be held to mean, among other things,
"stamps and other representatives of value, of whatever
denomination, which have been or may be issued under any act of
Congress," yet that language does not preclude the stamps from
being the personal property of the United States before they are
issued and sold by it. The section in question (5413) precedes
those sections relating to the forgery or counterfeiting of United
States obligations or securities, national bank notes, letters
patent, certificates of entry, public records, and the like, and it
includes stamps or any obligation of the United States that may be
the subject of forgery or counterfeiting, but it does not thereby
exclude postage stamps, before they are issued and while in the
possession of the government, from the
Page 170 U. S. 406
general designation of personal property belonging to the United
States.
There is, while the stamps are in the possession of the
government, some intrinsic value in the stamps themselves as
representatives of a certain amount of cost of material and labor,
both of which have entered into the article in the process of
manufacture, entirely aside from any prospective value as stamps.
They are incapable of being distinguished the one from the other.
All postage stamps of the same denomination are alike, and the
moment they are taken from the possession of the government they
are valuable in proportion to their denomination, and are subject
to use the same as if they had been purchased, because it is wholly
impossible for the government to detect or identify any particular
stamp as having been stolen or otherwise fraudulently put in use.
Once out of the possession of the government, they may be used for
their full value to obtain carriage by mail of the article to which
they are affixed. There is every reason, therefore, why such stamps
should be regarded as personal property, even while in the
possession of the government. They become valuable to the amount of
their denomination the very instant they get into the possession of
another. They are not mere obligations, but a species of valuable
property in and of themselves the moment they are out of the
possession of the government.
The case of
United States v. Davis, 5 Mason, 356, 365,
was an indictment for stealing bank bills, a promissory note, etc.,
and it was founded upon a different statute, in which very
different language was used. The act under which that indictment
was found was chapter 9 of the Laws of 1790 (1 Stat. 112, 116), and
section 16 thereof provided "that if any person . . . shall take
and carry away, with intent to steal or purloin, the personal goods
of another," etc. It was held by Mr. Justice Story that the meaning
of the words "personal goods of another" was to be determined by a
resort to the common law as furnishing the proper rule of
interpretation, and he held that, in the strict sense of the common
law, "personal goods" are goods which are movable, belong to, or
are the
Page 170 U. S. 407
property of some person, and which have an intrinsic value; that
bonds, bills, and notes, which are choses in action, are not
esteemed by the common law goods whereof larceny may be committed,
being of no intrinsic value, and not importing any property in the
possession of the person from whom they are stolen, but only
evidence of property. Therefore, strictly construing the statute as
a penal one, the court held that the analogy of the common law in
respect to larceny might well furnish the proper rule for decision,
and that personal goods in the sense of the act under consideration
did not embrace choses in action. Since that statute was passed,
the common law definition of larceny has been largely extended by
statute in almost every state in the Union.
The statute from which section 5456, Revised Statutes, was taken
was passed March 2, 1867, c. 193, 14 Stat. 557, and the same
all-embracing language is found therein. "Any kind or description
of personal property" is the phrase used. It was, no doubt, passed
to enlarge the common law in relation to the subjects of larceny.
Although at common law written instruments of any description were
not the subject of larceny, as not being personal goods -- that is,
movables having an intrinsic value -- yet although such instruments
could not, in strictness, be stolen, the paper or parchment on
which they were written might be, and prosecutions for petty thefts
of this description frequently took place in England.
People v.
Loomis, 4 Denio 380; 3 Chit.C.L. 932; 2 Russ. on Crimes,
74-80;
Rex v. Clark, R. & R. 181;
Vyse's
Case, Ry. & Mood. 218;
Reg. v. Morris, 9 C. &
P. 347;
Reg. v. Rodway, 9 C. & P. 784;
Rex v.
Bingley, 5 C. & P. 602;
Rex v. Mead, 4 C. &
P. 535. To make stamps, while unissued and in the hands of the
government, the subject of larceny is not, therefore, any very
great departure from the general doctrine of the common law.
Counsel for plaintiff in error claims that the offense, as shown
by the evidence in this case, assuming it to be true on the part of
the United States, is brought within section 5453 of the Revised
Statutes in relation to secreting, embezzling, taking, or carrying
away any property, etc., stamped in whole or in part, and intended
to be issued in behalf of the United
Page 170 U. S. 408
States, and he also argues that the indictment is wholly
defective under that section.
Whether the facts might or might not warrant an indictment under
such section it is not now necessary to decide, for the reason that
we hold the indictment good under section 5456, because we regard
postage stamps belonging to the United States as being included in
the section in question as personal property, and therefore the
subject of larceny.
The action of the jury in returning a verdict of guilty upon the
first and second counts and being silent as to the fifth was
equivalent to a verdict of not guilty as to that count.
See cases cited by MR. JUSTICE WHITE in
Selvester v.
United States, 170 U. S. 262.
For the reasons already given, we think the judgment is right,
and that it should be
Affirmed.