Spurr v. United States
Citation | 174 U.S. 728,43 L.Ed. 1150,19 S.Ct. 812 |
Decision Date | 22 May 1899 |
Docket Number | No. 448,448 |
Parties | SPURR v. UNITED STATES |
Court | United States Supreme Court |
Spurr was tried in the circuit court of the United States for the Middle district of Tennessee on three indictments, each containing several counts, for the violation of section 5208 of the Revised Statutes, which provides:
By section 13 of the act of congress approved July 12, 1882 (22 Stat. 162, c. 290), it is provided:
'That any officer, clerk, or agent of any national banking association who shall willfully violate the provisions of an act entitled 'An act in reference to certifying checks by national banks,' approved March third, eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, being section fifty-two hundred and eight of the Revised Statutes of the United States, or who shall resort to any device, or receive any fictitious obligation, direct or collateral, in order to evade the provisions thereof, or who shall certify checks before the amount thereof shall have been regularly entered to the credit of the dealer upon the books of the banking association, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof in any circuit or district court of the United States, be fined not more than five thousand dollars, or shall be imprisoned not more than five years, or both, in the discretion of the court.'
The indictments charged that Spurr, being the president of the Commercial National Bank of Nashville, Tenn., willfully violated the provisions of section 5208 of the Revised Statutes, by willfully, unlawfully, and knowingly certifying certain checks drawn on said bank by Dobbins & Dazey, well knowing that Dobbins & Dazey did not have on deposit with the bank, at the times when the checks were certified, respectively, an amount of money equal to the respective amounts specified therein. They were consolidated and tried together, and a verdict of guilty returned as follows: 'Came the United States attorney, and also the defendant in proper person, and came also the jury heretofore impaneled, and upon their oaths do say that they find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment, and recommend him to the mercy of the court.'
Motions for new trial and in arrest of judgment were made and overruled, and judgment entered on the verdict in these words:
The several counts of the consolidated indictments charged the certification by defendant of four checks, drawn by Dobbins & Dazey between December 9, 1892, and February 13, 1893, both inclusive, on the Commercial National Bank, aggregating $95,641.95. The bank was organized in 1884, and defendant was its president and one Porterfield its cashier from its organization to its failure, March 25, 1893. Dobbins & Dazey were engaged in the purchase, sale, and exportation of cotton, and their financial standing and credit were excellent. When the four checks in question were certified by defendant the account of Dobbins & Dazey was overdrawn, and the evidence was that their account was continuously and largely overdrawn during the period dovered by these checks, except on one day, and that 'this fact was known to Porterfield, the cashier, and all the employees of the bank under him in authority.' But 'there was also evidence tending to show that Porterfield misrepresented the real state of the Dobbins & Dazey account to the defendant, and the committees and the directors of the bank, by statements made to them, and also in his sworn reports to the comptroller of the currency, wherein the overdrafts in the bank were very largely understated.' There was also evidence on behalf of defendant to the effect 'that he had no knowledge of the fact that the account of Dobbins & Dazey was overdrawn on the books of the bank at the time of the certification of any of the checks upon which he is indicted, nor at any time during the period covered by the dates of the checks'; that, when he certified these checks, he inquired in every instance, either of the cashier or of the exchange clerk, and in every instance received information that sufficient funds and credits of Dobbins & Dazey were then in the bank to cover the checks certified, and that he never at any time certified a check without receiving such information, and that he relied upon it as true; that, if the cashier was in, he inquired of him, and, if not, he inquired of the exchange clerk,—these being the appropriate sources of information. The evidence on this head is given in much detail in the bill of exceptions.
The bill of exceptions also stated:
'After the jury were charged, and had retired from the court room to consider their verdict, and had been deliberating for some hours, they returned to the court room and asked the following question, which was written out in pencil and handed to the court.
"We want the law as to the certification of checks when no money appeared to the credit of the drawer.'
'The court then said: 'The jury state that they want the law as to the certification of a check where there is no money to the credit of the drawer.
'Foreman of the Jury: 'Yes, sir.'
'To this action of the court in reading twice section 5208 of the Revised Statutes, and in failing to read and explain the act of 1882, in response to the jury's question, and to the additional instructions given to the jury at this time, beginning with the words 'The $30,000,' and ending with the words 'to meet it,' the defendant then and there excepted.'
Sentence having been pronounced as before stated, the case was taken on error to the circuit court of appeals for the Sixth circuit, and the judgment was affirmed (59 U. S. App. 663, 31 C. C. A. 202, and 87 Fed. 701), whereupon the cause was brought to this court on certiorari.
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