This would have remained a profoundly insignificant case to all except its immediate parties had it not been so tried and submitted to the jury as to raise questions both fundamental and far-reaching in federal criminal law, for which reason we granted certiorari.
On a large tract of uninhabited and untilled land in a wooded and sparsely populated area of Michigan, the Government established a practice bombing range over which the Air Force dropped simulated bombs at ground targets. These bombs consisted of a metal cylinder about forty inches long and eight inches across, filled with sand and enough black powder to cause a smoke puff by which the strike could be located. At various places about the range signs read "Danger—Keep Out— Bombing Range." Nevertheless, the range was known as good deer country and was extensively hunted.
Spent bomb casings were cleared from the targets and thrown into piles "so that they will be out of the way." They were not stacked or piled in any order but were dumped in heaps, some of which had been accumulating for four years or upwards, were exposed to the weather and rusting away.
Morissette, in December of 1948, went hunting in this area but did not get a deer. He thought to meet expenses of the trip by salvaging some of these casings. He loaded three tons of them on his truck and took them to a nearby farm, where they were flattened by driving a tractor over them. After expending this labor and trucking them to market in Flint, he realized $84.
Morissette, by occupation, is a fruit stand operator in summer and a trucker and scrap iron collector in winter. An honorably discharged veteran of World War II,
The loading, crushing and transporting of these casings were all in broad daylight, in full view of passers-by, without the slightest effort at concealment. When an investigation was started, Morissette voluntarily, promptly and candidly told the whole story to the authorities, saying that he had no intention of stealing but thought the property was abandoned, unwanted and considered of no value to the Government. He was indicted, however, on the charge that he "did unlawfully, wilfully and knowingly steal and convert" property of the United States of the value of $84, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 641, which provides that "whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts" government property is punishable by fine and imprisonment.
On his trial, Morissette, as he had at all times told investigating officers, testified that from appearances he believed the casings were cast-off and abandoned, that he did not intend to steal the property, and took it with no
The Court of Appeals suggested that "greater restraint in expression should have been exercised," but affirmed the conviction because, "As we have interpreted the statute, appellant was guilty of its violation beyond a shadow of doubt, as evidenced even by his own admissions." Its construction of the statute is that it creates several separate and distinct offenses, one being knowing
I.
In those cases this Court did construe mere omission from a criminal enactment of any mention of criminal intent as dispensing with it. If they be deemed precedents for principles of construction generally applicable to federal penal statutes, they authorize this conviction. Indeed, such adoption of the literal reasoning announced in those cases would do this and more—it would sweep out of all federal crimes, except when expressly preserved, the ancient requirement of a culpable state of mind. We think a resume of their historical background is convincing that an effect has been ascribed to them more comprehensive than was contemplated and one inconsistent with our philosophy of criminal law.
The contention that an injury can amount to a crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transient notion. It is as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil.
Crime, as a compound concept, generally constituted only from concurrence of an evil-meaning mind with an evil-doing hand, was congenial to an intense individualism
However, the Balint and Behrman offenses belong to a category of another character, with very different antecedents and origins. The crimes there involved depend
While many of these duties are sanctioned by a more strict civil liability,
The pilot of the movement in this country appears to be a holding that a tavernkeeper could be convicted for selling liquor to an habitual drunkard even if he did not know the buyer to be such. Barnes v. State, 19 Conn. 398 (1849). Later came Massachusetts holdings that convictions for selling adulterated milk in violation of statutes forbidding such sales require no allegation or proof that defendant knew of the adulteration. Commonwealth v. Farren, 9 Allen 489 (1864); Commonwealth v. Nichols, 10 Allen 199 (1865); Commonwealth v. Waite, 11 Allen 264 (1865). Departures from the common-law tradition,
After the turn of the Century, a new use for crimes without intent appeared when New York enacted numerous and novel regulations of tenement houses, sanctioned by money penalties. Landlords contended that a guilty intent was essential to establish a violation. Judge Cardozo wrote the answer:
Soon, employers advanced the same contention as to violations of regulations prescribed by a new labor law. Judge Cardozo, again for the court, pointed out, as a basis
Thus, for diverse but reconcilable reasons, state courts converged on the same result, discontinuing inquiry into intent in a limited class of offenses against such statutory regulations.
Before long, similar questions growing out of federal legislation reached this Court. Its judgments were in harmony with this consensus of state judicial opinion, the existence of which may have led the Court to overlook the need for full exposition of their rationale in the context of federal law. In overruling a contention that there can be no conviction on an indictment which makes no charge of criminal intent but alleges only making of a sale of a narcotic forbidden by law, Chief Justice Taft, wrote:
He referred, however, to "regulatory measures in the exercise of what is called the police power where the emphasis
On the same day, the Court determined that an offense under the Narcotic Drug Act does not require intent, saying, "If the offense be a statutory one, and intent or knowledge is not made an element of it, the indictment need not charge such knowledge or intent." United States v. Behrman, supra, at 288.
Of course, the purpose of every statute would be "obstructed" by requiring a finding of intent, if we assume that it had a purpose to convict without it. Therefore, the obstruction rationale does not help us to learn the purpose of the omission by Congress. And since no federal crime can exist except by force of statute, the reasoning of the Behrman opinion, if read literally, would work far-reaching changes in the composition of all federal crimes. Had such a result been contemplated, it could hardly have escaped mention by a Court which numbered among its members one especially interested and informed concerning the importance of intent in common-law crimes.
It was not until recently that the Court took occasion more explicitly to relate abandonment of the ingredient of intent, not merely with considerations of expediency in obtaining convictions, nor with the malum prohibitum classification of the crime, but with the peculiar nature and quality of the offense. We referred to ". . . a now familiar type of legislation whereby penalties serve as
Neither this Court nor, so far as we are aware, any other has undertaken to delineate a precise line or set forth comprehensive criteria for distinguishing between crimes that require a mental element and crimes that do not. We attempt no closed definition, for the law on the subject is neither settled nor static. The conclusion reached in the Balint and Behrman cases has our approval and adherence for the circumstances to which it was there applied. A quite different question here is whether we will expand the doctrine of crimes without intent to include those charged here.
Stealing, larceny, and its variants and equivalents, were among the earliest offenses known to the law that existed before legislation;
Congress, therefore, omitted any express prescription of criminal intent from the enactment before us in the light of an unbroken course of judicial decision in all
The spirit of the doctrine which denies to the federal judiciary power to create crimes forthrightly
We hold that mere omission from § 641 of any mention of intent will not be construed as eliminating that element from the crimes denounced.
II.
It is suggested, however, that the history and purposes of § 641 imply something more affirmative as to elimination of intent from at least one of the offenses charged under it in this case. The argument does not contest
Congress has been alert to what often is a decisive function of some mental element in crime. It has seen fit to prescribe that an evil state of mind, described variously in one or more such terms as "intentional," "wilful," "knowing," "fraudulent" or "malicious," will make criminal an otherwise indifferent act,
The section with which we are here concerned was enacted in 1948, as a consolidation of four former sections of Title 18, as adopted in 1940, which in turn were derived from two sections of the Revised Statutes. The pertinent legislative and judicial history of these antecedents,
Congress, by the language of this section, has been at pains to incriminate only "knowing" conversions. But, at common law, there are unwitting acts which constitute conversions. In the civil tort, except for recovery of exemplary damages, the defendant's knowledge, intent, motive, mistake, and good faith are generally irrelevant.
Had the statute applied to conversions without qualification, it would have made crimes of all unwitting, inadvertent and unintended conversions. Knowledge, of course, is not identical with intent and may not have been the most apt words of limitation. But knowing conversion
It is said, and at first blush the claim has plausibility, that, if we construe the statute to require a mental element as part of criminal conversion, it becomes a meaningless duplication of the offense of stealing, and that conversion can be given meaning only by interpreting it to disregard intention. But here again a broader view of the evolution of these crimes throws a different light on the legislation.
It is not surprising if there is considerable overlapping in the embezzlement, stealing, purloining and knowing conversion grouped in this statute. What has concerned codifiers of the larceny-type offense is that gaps or crevices have separated particular crimes of this general class and guilty men have escaped through the breaches. The books contain a surfeit of cases drawing fine distinctions between slightly different circumstances under which one may obtain wrongful advantages from another's property. The codifiers wanted to reach all such instances. Probably every stealing is a conversion, but certainly not every knowing conversion is a stealing. "To steal means to take away from one in lawful possession without right with the intention to keep wrongfully." (Italics added.) Irving Trust Co. v. Leff, 253 N.Y. 359, 364, 171 N. E. 569, 571. Conversion, however, may be consummated without
The purpose which we here attribute to Congress parallels that of codifiers of common law in England
We find no grounds for inferring any affirmative instruction from Congress to eliminate intent from any offense with which this defendant was charged.
III.
As we read the record, this case was tried on the theory that even if criminal intent were essential its presence (a) should be decided by the court (b) as a presumption
Where intent of the accused is an ingredient of the crime charged, its existence is a question of fact which must be submitted to the jury. State court authorities cited to the effect that intent is relevant in larcenous crimes are equally emphatic and uniform that it is a jury issue. The settled practice and its reason are well stated by Judge Andrews in People v. Flack, 125 N.Y. 324, 334, 26 N. E. 267, 270:
It follows that the trial court may not withdraw or prejudge the issue by instruction that the law raises a presumption of intent from an act. It often is tempting to cast in terms of a "presumption" a conclusion which a court thinks probable from given facts. The Supreme Court of Florida, for example, in a larceny case, from selected circumstances which are present in this case, has
We think presumptive intent has no place in this case. A conclusive presumption which testimony could not overthrow would effectively eliminate intent as an ingredient of the offense. A presumption which would permit but not require the jury to assume intent from an isolated fact would prejudge a conclusion which the jury should reach of its own volition. A presumption which would permit the jury to make an assumption which all the evidence considered together does not logically establish would give to a proven fact an artificial and fictional effect.
Moreover, the conclusion supplied by presumption in this instance was one of intent to steal the casings, and it was based on the mere fact that defendant took them. The court thought the only question was, "Did he intend
Of course, the jury, considering Morissette's awareness that these casings were on government property, his failure to seek any permission for their removal and his self-interest as a witness, might have disbelieved his profession of innocent intent and concluded that his assertion of a belief that the casings were abandoned was an after-thought. Had the jury convicted on proper instructions it would be the end of the matter. But juries are not bound by what seems inescapable logic to judges. They might have concluded that the heaps of spent casings left in the hinterland to rust away presented an appearance of unwanted and abandoned junk, and that lack of any conscious deprivation of property or intentional injury was indicated by Morissette's good character, the openness of the taking, crushing and transporting of the casings, and the candor with which it was all admitted. They might have refused to brand Morissette as a thief. Had they done so, that too would have been the end of the matter.
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS concurs in the result.
MR. JUSTICE MINTON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
FootNotes
"Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another, or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, or any property made or being made under contract for the United States or any department or agency thereof;
.....
"Shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; but if the value of such property does not exceed the sum of $100, he shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."
Radin, Intent, Criminal, 8 Encyc. Soc. Sci. 126, 130, says, ". . . as long as in popular belief intention and the freedom of the will are taken as axiomatic, no penal system that negates the mental element can find general acceptance. It is vital to retain public support of methods of dealing with crime." Again, "The question of criminal intent will probably always have something of an academic taint. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the determination of the boundary between intent and negligence spells freedom or condemnation for thousands of individuals. The watchfulness of the jurist justifies itself at present in its insistence upon the examination of the mind of each individual offender."
Sayre, Public Welfare Offenses, 33 Col. L. Rev. 55, 56, says: "To inflict substantial punishment upon one who is morally entirely innocent, who caused injury through reasonable mistake or pure accident, would so outrage the feelings of the community as to nullify its own enforcement."
Hall, Prolegomena to a Science of Criminal Law, 89 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 549, 569, appears somewhat less disturbed by the trend, if properly limited, but, as to so-called public welfare crimes, suggests that "There is no reason to continue to believe that the present mode of dealing with these offenses is the best solution obtainable, or that we must be content with this sacrifice of established principles. The raising of a presumption of knowledge might be an improvement." (Italics added.)
In Felton v. United States, 96 U.S. 699, 703, the Court said, "But the law at the same time is not so unreasonable as to attach culpability, and consequently to impose punishment, where there is no intention to evade its provisions . . . ."
Others of like purport are Farzley v. State, 231 Ala. 60, 163 So. 394; Nickerson v. State, 22 Ala. App. 640, 119 So. 243; People v. Williams, 73 Cal.App.2d 154, 166 P.2d 63; Schiff v. People, 111 Colo. 333, 141 P.2d 892; Kemp v. State, 146 Fla. 101, 200 So. 368; Perdew v. Commonwealth, 260 Ky. 638, 86 S.W.2d 534, holding that appropriation by a finder of lost property cannot constitute larceny in the absence of intent; People v. Shaunding, 268 Mich. 218, 255 N. W. 770; People v. Will, 289 N.Y. 413, 46 N.E.2d 498; Van Vechten v. American Eagle Fire Ins. Co., 239 N.Y. 303, 146 N. E. 432; Thomas v. Kessler, 334 Pa. 7, 5 A.2d 187; Barnes v. State, 145 Tex. Cr. R. 131, 166 S.W.2d 708; Sandel v. State, 131 Tex. Cr. R. 132, 97 S.W.2d 225; Weeks v. State, 114 Tex. Cr. R. 406, 25 S.W.2d 855; Heskew v. State, 18 Tex. Ct. App. 275; Page v. Commonwealth, 148 Va. 733, 138 S. E. 510, holding reversible error to exclude evidence having a tendency to throw light on the question of the bona fides of one accused of larceny; Butts v. Commonwealth, 145 Va. 800, 133 S. E. 764; State v. Levy, 113 Vt. 459, 35 A.2d 853, holding that the taking of another's property in good faith by inadvertence or mistake does not constitute larceny.
This provision was to prevent incrimination of mere mental operations such as "compassing" the death of the King. See Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. 1. To hold that a mental element is necessary to a crime is, of course, not to say that it is all that is necessary.
18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 82 reads:
"Whoever shall take and carry away or take for his use, or for the use of another, with intent to steal or purloin . . . any property of the United States . . . shall be punished as follows . . . ."
In United States v. Anderson, 45 F.Supp. 943, a prosecution for conspiracy to violate that section, District Judge Yankwich said:
"It has been before the courts in very few cases. But such courts as have had cases under it, including our own Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, have held that the object of the section is to introduce the crime of larceny into the Federal Criminal Code.
"In Frach v. Mass, 9 Cir., 1939, 106 F.2d 820, 821, we find these words: `Larceny of property of the United States is made a crime by 18 U. S. C. A. § 82.'
"This means of course, that in interpreting the statute, we may apply the principles governing the common law crime of larceny, as interpreted by the courts of various states." 45 F. Supp. at 945.
United States v. Trinder, 1 F.Supp. 659, was a prosecution of a group of boys, under § 82, for "stealing" a government automobile. They had taken it for a joy ride without permission, fully intending to return it when they were through. Their plans went awry when the auto came to grief against a telephone pole. In dismissing the complaint, the District Judge said:
"Upon principle and authority there was no stealing but merely trespass; secret borrowing. At common law and likewise by the federal statute (18 USCA § 82) adopting common-law terms, stealing in general imports larceny; that is, felonious taking and intent to permanently deprive the owner of his property." 1 F. Supp. at 660.
18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 87, entitled "Embezzling arms and stores," provides:
"Whoever shall steal, embezzle, or knowingly apply to his own use, or unlawfully sell, convey, or dispose of, any ordnance, arms, ammunition, clothing, subsistence, stores, money, or other property of the United States, furnished or to be used for the military or naval service, shall be punished as prescribed in sections 80 and 82-86 of this title."
No cases appear to have been decided relating to the element of intent in the acts proscribed in that section.
18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 100, "Embezzling public moneys or other property," states that:
"Whoever shall embezzle, steal, or purloin any money, property, record, voucher, or valuable thing whatever, of the moneys, goods, chattels, records, or property of the United States, shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
The only noted case of consequence is Crabb v. Zerbst, 99 F.2d 562 (C. A. 5th Cir.), to which the dissent below referred at some length. The appellant there was convicted of feloniously taking and carrying away certain personal property of the United States in violation of § 46 of the Criminal Code, 18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 99, and had been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. He argued that the five-year limitation of sentence in 18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 100 for stealing property of the United States reduced the ten-year limitation in § 99 for feloniously taking and carrying away property of the United States to five years also.
The Court of Appeals rejected his argument, holding that the crime of "stealing" in § 100 was separate and distinct from the offense specified in § 99, on the ground that § 100 was a broadening of the common-law crime of larceny to foreclose any avenue by which one might, in the process of pleading, escape conviction for one offense by proving that he had committed another only a hair's breadth different.
In the course of its opinion, it advanced the following pertinent observations:
"That felonious taking and carrying away of property which may be the subject of the offense constitutes the common law offense of larceny cannot be disputed. . . . However, it is doubtful if at common law any fixed definition or formula [as to the meaning of `larceny'] was not strained in its application to some of the cases clearly constituting the offense. Modern criminal codes treat the offense in various ways. Some define the offense by following the old cases and are merely declaratory of the common law, while others have broadened the offense to include offenses previously known as embezzlement, false pretenses, and even felonious breaches of trust.
.....
"As pointed out above, the modern tendency is to broaden the offense of larceny, by whatever name it may be called, to include such related offenses as would tend to complicate prosecutions under strict pleading and practice. In some of these statutes the offense is denominated `theft' or `stealing.' No statute offers a clearer example of compromise between the common law and the modern code than the two sections here involved. Section 46 [18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 99] deals with robbery and larceny, the description of the latter being taken from the common law. Section 47 [18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 100] denounces the related offenses which might be included with those described in section 46 under a code practice seeking to avoid the pitfalls of technical pleading. In it the offense of embezzlement is included by name, without definition. Then to cover such cases as may shade into larceny, as well as any new situation which may arise under changing modern conditions and not envisioned under the common law, it adds the words steal or purloin. . . . Stealing, having no common law definition to restrict its meaning as an offense, is commonly used to denote any dishonest transaction whereby one person obtains that which rightfully belongs to another, and deprives the owner of the rights and benefits of ownership, but may or may not involve the element of stealth usually attributed to the word purloin. . . . Thus, in any case involving larceny as defined by the common law, section 46 [18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 99] would apply. Where the offense is embezzlement, or its nature so doubtful as to fall between larceny and embezzlement, it may be prosecuted under section 47 [18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 100]." 99 F. 2d at 564-565.
The reference in Crabb v. Zerbst to 18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 99, the robbery and larceny statute then operative, suggests examination of its successor in today's code. For purpose of clarification, that section states that:
"Whoever shall rob another of any kind or description of personal property belonging to the United States, or shall feloniously take and carry away the same, shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
The Reviser's Note to 18 U. S. C. § 641 makes no mention of it as a successor to that section. The present robbery statute is 18 U. S. C. § 2112, "Personal property of United States," providing that:
"Whoever robs another of any kind or description of personal property belonging to the United States, shall be imprisoned not more than fifteen years."
The Reviser's Note to that section recites that it is derived from § 99 of the 1940 Code, and "That portion of said section 99 relating to felonious taking was omitted as covered by section 641 of this title," which makes it clear that, notwithstanding the absence of any reference to 18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 99 in the Note to 18 U. S. C. § 641, the crime of larceny by a felonious taking and carrying away has been transported directly from the former into the latter.
18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 101 is the forerunner of that part of present § 641 dealing with receiving stolen property, and has no application to the problem at hand.
The history of § 641 demonstrates that it was to apply to acts which constituted larceny or embezzlement at common law and also acts which shade into those crimes but which, most strictly considered, might not be found to fit their fixed definitions. It is also pertinent to note that it renders one subject to its penalty who "knowingly converts to his own use" property of the United States. The word "converts" does not appear in any of its predecessors. 18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 82 is applicable to one who "take[s] for his [own] use . . . with intent to steal or purloin . . . ." 18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 87 uses the words "knowingly apply to his own use." Neither 18 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) §§ 99, 100, nor 101 has any words resembling "knowingly converts to his own use." The 1948 Revision was not intended to create new crimes but to recodify those then in existence. We find no suggestion that a guilty intent was not a part of each crime now embodied in § 641.
"1. For the purposes of this Act—
"(1) A person steals who, without the consent of the owner, fraudulently and without a claim of right made in good faith, takes and carries away anything capable of being stolen with intent, at the time of such taking, permanently to deprive the owner thereof:
"Provided that a person may be guilty of stealing any such thing notwithstanding that he has lawful possession thereof, if, being a bailee or part owner thereof, he fraudulently converts the same to his own use or the use of any person other than the owner . . . ."
For the growth and development of the crime of larceny in England, see 2 Russell on Crime (10th ed., Turner, 1950), 1037-1222, from which the material above was taken.
"A person who, with the intent to deprive or defraud another of the use and benefit of property or to appropriate the same to the use of the taker, or of any other person other than the true owner, wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds, by any means whatever, from the possession of the true owner or of any other person any money, personal property, thing in action, evidence of debt or contract, or article of value of any kind, steals such property and is guilty of larceny."
The same section provides further that it shall be no defense to a prosecution that:
"2. The accused in the first instance obtained possession of, or title to, such property lawfully, provided he subsequently wrongfully withheld or appropriated such property to his own use or the use of any person not entitled to the use and benefit of such property. . . ."
The Historical Note to that section discloses that it represents an attempt to abolish the distinctions between kinds of larcenies. Laws 1942, c. 732, § 1, provided:
"It is hereby declared as the public policy of the state that the best interests of the people of the state will be served, and confusion and injustice avoided, by eliminating and abolishing the distinctions which have hitherto differentiated one sort of theft from another, each of which, under section twelve hundred and ninety of the penal law, was denominated a larceny, to wit: common law larceny by asportation, common law larceny by trick and device, obtaining property by false pretenses, and embezzlement."
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