Leehey

When the property feloniously taken exceeds fifty dollars in value, the offense is grand larceny. But if the property so taken be taken from the person of another, the offense is grand larceny even though the value be less than fifty dollars. So if the property taken be of the equine species, the offense is grand larceny, regardless of the actual value of the animal stolen: Penal Code, see. 487. The statute in these last two cases has ignored mere value in defining the offense of grand larceny.

But in the offense of embezzlement the feature of value is preserved. “Every person guilty of embezzlement is punishable in the manner prescribed for feloniously stealing property of the value [not, as I conceive, of the mere description or character] of that embezzled, ’ ’ etc.: Section 514. Now, it is set forth in the indictment that the value of the mare, which is the subject of the embezzlement charged, did not exceed *58 the stun of fifty dollars, and yet the judgment of the court below which is now affirmed here is that the prisoner be imprisoned in the penitentiary as though the mare had been stolen instead of embezzled. If the embezzlement of the mare in question be a felony…

The indictment in this case is for the embezzlement of a mare, alleged to be of the value of fifty dollars, and the defendant having been found guilty as charged in the indictment, was sentenced to the state prison for a term of years, and appeals from the judgment.

It is insisted that inasmuch as the property did not exceed fifty dollars in value, the punishment could not exceed that for petit larceny. But under section 487 of the Penal Co'de the larceny of a horse, mare, etc., is grand larceny, without reference to the value of the property; and section 514 of the same code provides that “every person guilty of embezzlement is punished in the same manner prescribed for feloniously stealing property of the value of that embezzled. ’ ’

Under these provisions, the stealing of one of the enumerated animals, however inconsiderable its value, can in no ease constitute the offense of petit larceny; and it necessarily results that unless the embezzlement of an animal of the value of fifty - dollars or less can be punished under section 514, as for grand larceny, it cannot be punished at all. By section *57 503, embezzlement is defined as “the fraudulent appropriation of property by a…