Larceny Punishment In The 18th Century

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Larceny According to Lawbrain.com, the crime Larceny is unlawful taking of someone else’s personal property and is most commonly known as theft today. This crime originates from the common law of England and was developed by the royal courts of England in the 17th century. The reason why this crime was developed was to bring punishment to those who took private property through nonviolent means because “they” wanted to differentiate against robbery. Robbery involves unlawful taking of personal property through violent means. The courts felt that taking without any violence involved shouldn’t receive the same punishment. Although most crimes were punished the same and usually ended in the death penalty. Larceny was punished extremely severely…show more content…
You could receive the death penalty or have been sentenced to many years in prison where the thief would end up dyeing anyway. In the 18th century, English courts felt they needed to develop and enlarge the definition of larceny. They made a new offences called embezzlement which included misappropriation of property after lawful possession. Embezzlement was punished much more severely because it involved a breach of trust. After that, larceny by trick was created to punish those who obtain personal property by fraud or deceit in order to get the victim to agree in handing over property. The con-artist would usually argue they didn’t commit a crime because the victims agreed to give them their property. Then the English courts started to make divisions base on the value of the property obtained. Grand larceny and petit larceny was created. Petit larceny was punished less harshly because the value that was taking was much less compared to grand larceny. In the United States, larceny was adopted in the counties early history but in the twentieth century, legislatures eliminated it for a broad theft statute. Now prosecutors only had to worry about the intent to steal and value of the…show more content…
The first thing that sticks out to me is the state’s definition of the crime. New Jersey’s definition is simple and basic by saying taking property or exercising control over a property that isn’t yours. New York’s definition is a lot more describe and thought out. New York’s definition of larceny/theft also insinuates that you don’t even have to personally take the property for it to be considered theft. You can obtain it and as long as you with hold it from the original owner it’s considered theft unlike New Jersey. This is proven when it says in the definition, “When a person wrongfully takes, obtains, or withholds property from the rightful owner, with intent to deprive the owner of the property.” Another point to be consider when comparing both states is the concept of grand larceny. Unlike New Jersey, New York bases the charging process on Grand larceny first, second, third and fourth degree. New Jersey only has the first degree that is considered grand larceny and the rest is just considered theft of a certain degree. In New York, you spend 6 months longer in prison then you would in New Jersey for petit theft. Both state have something’s in common though such as. All degrees other than petit theft is considered a felony. Objects that make it an automatic certain degree are the same in both states as

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