Caseflicks

Oregon Supreme Court • 1968

State v. Langis

444 P.2d 959 | 251 Or. 130 | 1968 Ore. LEXIS 433

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Takeaway

In short, this case confirms that a temporary taking can be larceny when the planned abandonment creates a substantial risk that the owner will permanently lose the property.

Background

Langis was convicted of larceny of a motor vehicle. He and Richard Carrier were traveling south from Vancouver, British Columbia, toward San Francisco by bus and hitchhiking when a car was taken in Eugene, Oregon. Police stopped the car between Eugene and Roseburg, about 70 miles apart. Carrier was driving and testified that he, rather than Langis, physically took the car; the arresting officer corroborated that Carrier was driving.

Carrier testified that he intended to leave the car in Roseburg in perfect condition. Because larceny under ORS 164.310 required an intent permanently to deprive the owner of the property, the trial court instructed the jury that it could find that intent if Langis took the car for his own use while intending later to abandon it in circumstances making recovery difficult or unlikely. Langis challenged both the evidentiary basis for that instruction and its statement of the law. The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the evidence supported instructing the jury that Langis may have intended to abandon the car in circumstances making its recovery difficult or unlikely.

Holding

Yes. The evidence permitted the jury to infer an intended abandonment under circumstances creating a substantial risk that the owner would not recover the car.

Reasoning

Carrier's testimony that the travelers planned to abandon the car supplied evidence of an intended abandonment. Although Carrier said the intended location was Roseburg, the jury was not required to accept that assertion without considering the surrounding evidence.

Langis and Carrier were traveling toward San Francisco, approximately 500 miles south of Eugene. From that evidence, the jury reasonably could infer that Langis intended to abandon the vehicle in San Francisco rather than in Roseburg, an inference that supported the challenged instruction.

Issue #2

Whether an intent temporarily to use a vehicle and then abandon it under circumstances making recovery difficult or unlikely can establish the intent permanently to deprive required for larceny.

Holding

Yes. An intended abandonment that creates a considerable risk of permanent loss to the owner supports an inference of intent permanently to deprive.

Reasoning

The court explained that a person need not plan to keep property forever to possess larcenous intent. A temporary taking followed by abandonment is theft when the planned abandonment exposes the owner to a considerable risk of permanently losing the property.

The relevant distinction is between abandonment likely to result in restoration and abandonment likely to result in permanent loss. Turning a horse loose near its owner's farm may create little risk of permanent loss, while abandoning an umbrella in a different city may create that risk. The same principle could apply to a car taken from Eugene and abandoned far from its owner.

The instruction's use of the word "unlikely" accurately conveyed the required idea: the circumstances of abandonment must make permanent deprivation a substantial risk. The word "difficult" was less precise, and the court discouraged its future use, but it was not reversible error here because jurors could reasonably understand it to mean recovery would be so arduous that the owner faced a substantial chance of permanent deprivation.