Clarence Yvon Berard v. United States

Appellants stands convicted of violation of the Dyer Act. 18 U.S.C. § 2312 . Upon this appeal from conviction, the only question is whether the district court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that before they could find the automobile in question to have been stolen by appellant, they must find that he intended permanently to deprive the owner of his rights and benefits with respect to the car.

Appellant contends that this is a requisite of common law larceny; that the courts, in departing from the common law definition in Dyer Act cases, have done so only in order to be able to include embezzlement and false pretense cases; that the requirement of permanence is consistent with such departures.

In United States v. Turley, 1957, 352 U.S. 407 , 77 S.Ct. 397, 402 , 1 L.Ed.2d 430 , it was stated:

The court further pointed out (footnote 4 at page 410, 77 S.Ct. 397 ) that the word “felonious” was used in the sense of having criminal intent rather than in the sense of specifying an intent to commit a felony as distinguished from a misdemeanor.

Following Turley, proof of an intent to deprive the owner permanently of his property has been construed as unnecessary where the…