United
States v. Stefan, 69 M.J. 256 (one should not
underestimate the seriousness
of barracks’ larceny; from basic training onwards, servicemembers are
taught to
trust their fellow servicemembers with their life, and barracks’ theft
substantially damages that trust).
United
States v. Lubasky, 68 M.J. 260 (a servicemember
commits larceny under Article
121(a)(1), UCMJ, when that person wrongfully takes, obtains, or
withholds, by
any means, from the possession of the owner or of any other person any
money,
personal property, or article of value of any kind with intent
permanently to
deprive or defraud another person of the use and benefit of property or
to
appropriate it to his own use or the use of any person other than the
owner).
(as
used in Article 121, UCMJ, the single term “larceny” encompasses and
consolidates what in the past were separate crimes, i.e., larceny,
larceny by
trick, embezzlement, and obtaining property by false pretenses; because
of
this, the particular means of acquisition of the property became
relatively
unimportant).
(wrongfully engaging in a
credit, debit, or
electronic transaction to obtain goods or money is an obtaining‑type
larceny by
false pretense; such use to obtain goods is usually a larceny of those
goods
from the merchant offering them).
(under Article 121, UCMJ,
larceny always
requires that the accused wrongfully obtain money or goods of a certain
value
from a person or entity with a superior possessory interest).
(appellant’s unauthorized use
of credit cards
to obtain cash advances and goods was a larceny against the credit card
issuers
and the business establishments where the goods were purchased, not
against the
cards’ owner).
(evidence that appellant was
granted access to
an elderly account holder’s checking account after representing that he
would
use the funds in the account to help pay her bills and expenses, and
that he
thereafter entered into unauthorized ATM and other debit transactions
from the
account for his own purposes, was legally sufficient to support a
conviction of
larceny from the elderly account holder; even assuming that appellant
was a
joint owner of the account, the evidence supports a conclusion that he
obtained
access to the account as a joint owner by false pretenses --
representing to the
elderly account holder that he would use her funds in the manner she
authorized
-- with the actual intent to use the funds for his own purposes
instead; in
using false pretenses to obtain access to the account in this manner,
appellant
committed larceny against elderly account holder; moreover, whatever
apparent
legal authority appellant possessed to use the checking account funds,
it was
properly limited in scope by the elderly account holder’s beneficiary
status
and appellant’s fiduciary role; in other words, while adding appellant
to the
account vested him with the authority to retrieve funds from it, his
authority
to make various uses of those funds was limited to making necessary
purchases
for the elderly account holder, not purchasing things for himself).
(two legal interests may
coexist in the same
property and the invasion of either may sustain a larceny prosecution).
(a change in the subject of
the larceny at the
appellate stage of review may not be analyzed and upheld as a nonfatal
variance: under the UCMJ and the RCMs,
“variance” occurs at trial, not the appellate level; while an appellate
court
may affirm an LIO to larceny under Article 59, UCMJ, larceny from one
person is
not an LIO of larceny from another person).
(the question whether a
variance to the
ownership of property in a charged larceny specification was fatal
would be one
an appellate court could answer if the factfinder had made findings by
exceptions and substitutions; as noted in RCM 918, exceptions and
substitutions
may be made by the factfinder at the findings portion of the trial; but
nothing
in either the UCMJ or the RCMs suggests that, at the appellate level,
crossing
out the alleged property owner in a larceny specification and inserting
the
name of some other owner is permissible; RCM 918 does not grant an
appellate
court the authority to make that change; while Article 59(b), UCMJ,
provides an
appellate court with the power to approve or affirm so much of a
finding as
includes an LIO where the evidence as to the greater offense is not
legally
sufficient, that provision does not provide authority for the
proposition that
larceny from one entity is an LIO of larceny from another entity).
United
States v. Whitten, 56 MJ 234 (the crime of larceny
by
taking continues as long as asportation of the property continues;
factually,
the original asportation continues as long as the perpetrator is not
satisfied
with the location of the goods and causes the flow of their movement to
continue relatively uninterrupted).
(viewed under the standard for assessing legal sufficiency of the
evidence,
Court finds legally sufficient evidence to find appellant guilty of
conspiracy
to commit larceny and larceny where: (1) R and M formed an agreement,
manifested by their conduct, to steal a duffel bag; (2) appellant
joined the
ongoing conspiracy to steal the duffel bag; (3) several overt acts in
furtherance of the conspiracy were committed after appellant joined the
conspiracy; and (4) appellant aided and abetted the larceny before
asportation
of the stolen property was complete).
2001
United
States v. Binegar, 55 MJ 1 (an honest mistake of
fact as
to a soldier’s entitlement or authorization to take property is a
defense to a
charge of larceny under Article 121, UCMJ, one element of which is the
specific
intent to steal).
(a
military superior’s
permission to his subordinate to dispose of government property to
other
servicemembers is not the type of fact which is unrelated to a specific
intent
of the subordinate to steal from the Government; therefore, any mistake
of fact
must only be honest to provide a defense).
(military
judge’s
instructional
error informing the members that appellant’s mistake must have been
both honest
and reasonable, rather than only honest in order to provide a defense
to
larceny was materially prejudicial where: (1) the instruction placed a
lesser
burden on the government to prove appellant’s guilt because it could
secure his
conviction by disproving either the honesty or the reasonableness of
the
mistake; (2) trial counsel exploited the erroneous instruction in his
findings
argument; and (3) the government presented a substantial case on the
unreasonableness of appellant’s conduct, creating a reasonable
possibility that
the members resolved this case against appellant on this basis.
United
States v. Pacheco, 56 MJ 1 (evidence was legally
sufficient to
show the wrongfulness of appellant’s taking or withholding of a weapon,
as well
as his intent permanently to deprive the owner of the use and benefit
of the
weapon, where that evidence revealed that appellant did not return the
pistol
or inform the authorities of its taking after being informed that the
taking of
weapons was not permitted and that all weapons had to be returned prior
to a
shakedown).
2000
United
States v. Reed, 54 MJ 37 (viewing evidence as a
whole,
Court finds evidence of larceny and false official statements legally
sufficient where the evidence showed that appellant stole a modem and
then
engaged in an elaborate cover-up after the modem was discovered to be
missing).
1999
United
States v. Russell, 50 MJ 99 (appellant’s guilty plea
admission
that stolen items were military property used by Air Force, even though
items
were never actually turned over to the government, provided sufficient
basis in
record to support guilty plea to larceny of military property).