## Facts

- Arthur Reese worked as a porter on a train traveling through Washington.
- A passenger, Chas. E. Roediger, had a gold watch valued at $50 and another gold item valued at $50.
- Roediger went to sleep around midnight while still in possession of the items; upon waking the next day, they were missing.
- About a month later, Reese pawned the watch in Spokane.
- Reese was charged by information with grand larceny.
- The charging theory relied on a statute purporting to place jurisdiction for offenses committed on a train or other public conveyance in any county through which the conveyance passed during the trip.
- The State did not prove the specific point on the route where the taking occurred; the evidence showed only possession before sleep and loss upon waking.

## Issues

1. Whether a statute allowing venue in any county through which a train passes for an offense committed on the train is valid under the state constitutional guarantee of trial in the county where the offense was committed, when the crime’s location is not shown.
2. Whether the information and the proof sufficiently alleged and established venue in Spokane County (or within a valid exception) to support entry of judgment on the verdict.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s order arresting judgment after the guilty verdict.
- The court concluded the special conveyance venue statute could not sustain prosecution in Spokane County on this record.
- The court treated the information as defective because it did not properly lay venue in Spokane County under a constitutionally valid theory.
- The court rejected characterizing the theft as a multi-county offense merely because the train traveled through multiple counties.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant has a constitutional right to be tried in the county where the offense was committed; legislative venue provisions must conform to that requirement.
- Venue must be alleged in the charging document and supported by evidence at trial, unless the case falls within a valid, recognized exception.
- A discrete larceny committed on a moving conveyance is not transformed into a multi-county offense solely because the conveyance crosses county lines.
- A venue statute that permits prosecution in any county along a route, without tying venue to where the crime occurred or to a valid exception, cannot be used to sustain a conviction when the place of the offense is not properly alleged or proved.

## Conclusion

Because the State relied on an overbroad conveyance-venue theory and failed to properly allege and prove that the larceny occurred in Spokane County (or within a valid exception), the trial court correctly arrested judgment, and the conviction was not reinstated.


State v. Reese, 112 Wash. 507, 192 P. 934 (Wash. 1920)