## Facts

- Girard Langis and Richard Carrier traveled together from Vancouver, British Columbia, to San Francisco, California, using buses and hitchhiking.
- After reaching Eugene, Oregon, they stole a vehicle to continue traveling south.
- Oregon State Police stopped the vehicle south of Eugene and just north of Roseburg, Oregon, the next major city south of Eugene; the cities are about 70 miles apart.
- At trial, Carrier testified that he took the car in Eugene and was driving when police stopped them; an officer’s testimony confirmed Carrier was the driver at the time of apprehension.
- Carrier testified that he intended to leave the car in Roseburg in “perfect condition.”
- Langis and Carrier were charged with larceny of a motor vehicle, which required proof of intent to permanently deprive the owner of the car.
- The trial court instructed the jury that if it found the defendant took the car to appropriate it to his own use and intended later to abandon it in circumstances that would make the owner’s recovery difficult or unlikely, then the jury could find the taking was with intent to permanently deprive.
- Langis was convicted and appealed, arguing the instruction was improper.

## Issues

1. Whether there was sufficient evidence to support giving an instruction that permitted the jury to infer intent to permanently deprive from an intent to abandon the vehicle under circumstances making recovery difficult or unlikely.
2. Whether, under Oregon’s larceny statute, an intent to appropriate a vehicle for personal use and then abandon it in circumstances making recovery difficult or unlikely can satisfy (or support an inference of) the statutory intent to permanently deprive.

## Decision

- The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed Langis’s conviction.
- The court held there was evidence from which the jury could find an intent to abandon the car under circumstances making recovery difficult or unlikely, including the evidence that the defendants were traveling toward San Francisco and could abandon the car far from Eugene.
- The court held the challenged instruction stated a correct rule: intent to permanently deprive may be inferred when the defendant intends to abandon the vehicle in circumstances that substantially reduce the likelihood of the owner’s recovery.
- Because the instruction was permissive (“may find”) and supported by the evidence, giving it was not error.

## Legal Principles

- Oregon’s larceny statute (ORS 164.310) required the state to prove the defendant acted with intent to deprive the owner of the property permanently.
- A jury may infer intent to permanently deprive when it finds the defendant intended to appropriate the property to personal use and then abandon it in a manner or place that would make the owner’s recovery difficult or unlikely.
- A permissive inference instruction is proper when evidence exists from which the jury could reasonably find the predicate facts (intent to appropriate plus intended abandonment under recovery-impairing circumstances).
- An asserted plan to leave a stolen vehicle “in perfect condition” does not bar a finding of larcenous intent where the planned abandonment would still make the owner’s recovery difficult or unlikely.

## Conclusion

State v. Langis affirmed a motor-vehicle larceny conviction where the jury was instructed it could infer intent to permanently deprive from a plan to use the stolen car and later abandon it under circumstances that would make recovery by the owner difficult or unlikely; the Oregon Supreme Court held both that the record supported giving the instruction and that the inference was consistent with Oregon’s statutory intent requirement.


State v. Langis, 444 P.2d 959 (1968)