A had grubbed Rhododendron indicum, which was above 1.5 m tall and 1 m wide. A did not carry it to another place by herself; she called her husband (B) and asked him to do so. She was found carrying it with him. The Supreme Court thus held: “When the actor grubbed a tree to steal a living tree, at that time, the owner’s possession of the tree was broken, and the owner, in relation to the tree, was under the actual domination of the actor. At that precise moment, larceny was consummated.” The Court thus ruled that larceny was consummated at the time that the tree was grubbed.
However, the Supreme Court held that when the engine of the car in question (an article of great bulk, like Rhododendron indicum) had not yet been ignited, larceny was not yet a consummated act but was still an attempted one (Supreme Court Decision 94Do1522 delivered on September 9, 1994). In this case, it can be said that the Supreme Court would rule that the car theft was consummated when the car’s engine was ignited by the actor. The Supreme Court had assumed such standpoint heretofore because from 1964 to July 2008, the Supreme Court held that larceny is consummated when the actor carries a property that is under another person’s possession, against the possessor’s will, to one’s or a third person’s possession.
I think that the Supreme Court should have sustained the aforementioned exposition in the case of Rhododendron indicum so that it would suit the proper substances and contents of stealing. Thus, it is valid to claim that the larceny of the Rhododendron indicum was consummated not when A had grubbed the tree but when A had carried the tree into her car to assert her new possession of it. It is also proper that A, who planned to steal the Rhododendron indicum and who performed the acts leading to such, is not guilty of the criminal attempt of special larceny in Article 331 but of the criminal attempt of larceny in Article 329 of the Criminal Law. B could be punished as an accessory, who aided and abetted the commission of the crime by A.