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    US vs. WICKERSHAM

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    Beatta Ramirez
    The defendant, who was the chief clerk of the quartermaster's office, stole checks belonging to the United States Army totaling over 3,000 Philippine pesos while intoxicated. He argued he could not be convicted of theft because he had control over the safe's contents as the key holder. However, the court ruled that (1) checks are a form of personal property that can be stolen, as they represent control over funds; and (2) as a clerk he did not have actual control over the contents and took the checks from the constructive possession of their owner. Therefore, the defendant was correctly convicted of theft rather than the lesser crime of embezzlement.

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    US vs. WICKERSHAM

    Uploaded by

    Beatta Ramirez
    25 views2 pages
    The defendant, who was the chief clerk of the quartermaster's office, stole checks belonging to the United States Army totaling over 3,000 Philippine pesos while intoxicated. He argued he could not be convicted of theft because he had control over the safe's contents as the key holder. However, the court ruled that (1) checks are a form of personal property that can be stolen, as they represent control over funds; and (2) as a clerk he did not have actual control over the contents and took the checks from the constructive possession of their owner. Therefore, the defendant was correctly convicted of theft rather than the lesser crime of embezzlement.

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    The defendant, who was the chief clerk of the quartermaster's office, stole checks belonging to the United States Army totaling over 3,000 Philippine pesos while intoxicated. He argued he could not be convicted of theft because he had control over the safe's contents as the key holder. However, the court ruled that (1) checks are a form of personal property that can be stolen, as they represent control over funds; and (2) as a clerk he did not have actual control over the contents and took the checks from the constructive possession of their owner. Therefore, the defendant was correctly convicted of theft rather than the lesser crime of embezzlement.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    25 views2 pages

    US vs. WICKERSHAM

    Uploaded by

    Beatta Ramirez
    The defendant, who was the chief clerk of the quartermaster's office, stole checks belonging to the United States Army totaling over 3,000 Philippine pesos while intoxicated. He argued he could not be convicted of theft because he had control over the safe's contents as the key holder. However, the court ruled that (1) checks are a form of personal property that can be stolen, as they represent control over funds; and (2) as a clerk he did not have actual control over the contents and took the checks from the constructive possession of their owner. Therefore, the defendant was correctly convicted of theft rather than the lesser crime of embezzlement.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    THE UNITED STATES vs. F.

    WICKERSHAM

    G. R. No. L-6781 November 6, 1911

    FACTS: The information in this case charges the defendant with the crime
    of hurto (theft). That said defendant, F. Wickersham, being chief clerk in the office of the
    Quartermaster of the United States Army in Iloilo, without violence, intimidation or force
    toward persons or things, stole personal gain by abusing the confidence of his chief,
    various checks belonging to the United States, credited to Captain L. F. Garrard of the
    United States Army in Iloilo making a total of P3,041.56 Philippine currency having been
    drawn on the Treasury of the Philippine Islands, depositary of the Treasury of the United
    States.

    Defendant was the chief clerk in the quartermaster's office in Iloilo, to whom was
    intrusted the combination and the key to the quartermaster's safe, to open and close it
    at the direction of his superior officer, the quartermaster in charge of the office; he had
    no control whatever over the contents of the safe and was not charged with the
    withdrawal or distribution of the funds, checks and other property which were kept in it.

    During the absence of his superior officer and while in a state of intoxication, defendant
    opened the safe and abstracted therefrom the cash and checks described in the
    information. Before judgment of conviction in the court below, the cash and all of the
    checks were recovered, except three which were indorsed by the parties to whom the
    defendant sold them, and paid by the Treasurer of the Philippine Islands, upon whom
    they were drawn. The face value of these checks was refunded to the quartermaster, so
    that at the time when judgment was entered in the court below all of the stolen property
    or its value had been recovered.

    RTC convicted as charged.

    Counsel contends that whatever be the nature of the offense committed by the
    defendant in abstracting money and checks from the safe of which he carried the key, it
    is not theft ( hurto). His argument is that one can not steal from one's self, and that one
    who misappropriates funds or other personal property which are under his control may
    perhaps be convicted of some offense of the nature of estafa (embezzlement), or
    misappropriation or defalcation of public funds if the funds abstracted are public funds;
    but that theft necessarily implies the taking of property from the possession of another.

    ISSUE/s:

    (1) Whether or not checks are considered personal property which can be
    subject of theft under the Revised Penal Code;

    (2) Whether or not the defendant as the chief clerk is liable for Estafa instead
    of theft as argued by the defendant’s counsel.

    RULING:

    (1) YES. A check in the hands of its lawful owner is something more than a mere
    evidence or token of the existence of money elsewhere. It is an instrument which, from
    its peculiar qualities as a commercial document, places certain funds under the special
    control of its lawful holder so long as he retains it in his possession. It confers upon its
    holder exceptional and peculiar powers as to the disposition of the funds against which it
    is drawn, and enables him to realize those funds without regard to the mutual relations
    existing between himself and the drawer of the check or the depository wherein the
    funds are actually placed.

    The loss of possession of a check deprives the owner of the immediate control of the
    funds against which it is drawn, and may involve the loss of the fund itself, unless he
    adopts prompt and efficient measures to protect himself; indeed if the check be made
    payable to bearer its abstraction from his possession exposes him to the risk of loss of
    the fund without redress except only as against the guilty person.

    Thus, a check is in a very real sense personal property, and that when
    abstracted with the intention of converting it to use of the person taking it,
    the abstraction of the check constitutes a taking of personal property from the
    possession of another, defined and penalized as the crime of hurto (theft) in
    the Penal Code.

    (2) NO. Defendant's possession of the key and the combination of the safe gave him no
    control over the contents. His relation to the contents of the safe was merely that of a
    guard whose duty it was to see that no one but his superior officer had access to the
    funds, and he had no more right of disposition of the contents of the safe than has a
    watchman of a warehouse to whom the key is intrusted the right to dispose of its
    contents.

    In the case at bar the defendant took personal property of this character from
    the constructive possession of its owner with the intention of converting it to
    his own use. The fact, admitting that it was a fact, that he could not make use of this
    property in the condition in which it was at the moment when he deprived the owner of
    it without indorsing it, does not and ought not to determine its value when he is called to
    account for his criminal act. The checks in the hands of their lawful owners were
    completed instruments. They gave their lawful owner control of the amount of currency
    corresponding to their face value, with the power of transferring that control by an
    appropriate endorsement was not absolutely essential to the value of these checks in the
    hands of an honest holder.

    It is contended that the offense of abstracting and negotiating a check may


    be estafa (embezzlement) or one of its kindred offenses, but that is not theft. This was
    the theory of the common law under which commercial paper was not the subject of
    larceny, for the reason, as it was said, that it has no intrinsic value, and is merely an
    evidence or token of the existence of money or property elsewhere. The common law
    rule, however, has been abrogated in most American jurisdiction by statutes making
    commercial papers the subject of larceny and it is not in force in these Islands. The
    supreme court of Spain has repeatedly held that checks ( cheques) and other
    commercial papers ( valores) are subjects of larceny.

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