State v. Sattley

• Citation: 131 Mo. 464,33 S.W. 41
• Parties: STATE v. SATTLEY.
• Decision Date: 03 December 1895
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

33 S.W. 41

131 Mo. 464

STATE v. SATTLEY.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

December 3, 1895.

BANKS AND BANKING — RECEIVING DEPOSITS AFTER KNOWLEDGE OF INSOLVENCY — CONSTITUTIONAL PROHIBITION — NECESSITY FOR LEGISLATION — POWER OF STATE TO DEFINE CRIMES — INDICTMENT — SUFFICIENCY — COMPETENCY OF EVIDENCE — OBJECTIONS TO EVIDENCE — VALUE OF CORPORATE STOCK — GENERAL VERDICT ON SEVERAL COUNTS.

1. When the constitution provides that the doing of certain acts shall be a crime, "the nature and punishment of which shall be prescribed by law" (article 12, § 27), there is no offense until the legislature has defined the crime whose constituents are thus indicated in the constitution, and has fixed the penalty therefor.

2. Rev. St. 1889, § 3581, providing that any bank officer who shall receive or assent to the reception of a deposit, or who shall create or assent to the creation of any indebtedness by the bank, knowing that it is in a failing condition, shall be guilty of larceny, and punished, etc., sufficiently prescribes the nature of the crime, as required by Const. art. 12, § 27.

3. An objection that a statute declaring certain acts to be larceny is repugnant to the common-law definition of that crime is untenable, the state being in no wise restricted in defining offenses.

4. An indictment under Rev. St. 1889, § 3581, charging a bank officer with receiving a deposit, knowing that the bank was insolvent, is not defective because each count concludes with the words, "did take, steal, and carry away."

5. The receiving of a deposit, and issuing of a certificate therefor, creates "an indebtedness," within Rev. St. 1889, § 3581, making it a crime for any bank officer to create or assent to the creation of any indebtedness by the bank, knowing its insolvency, etc.

6. On an issue as to the value of the assets of an insolvent bank, the testimony of the assignee, who had devoted a year to ascertaining their worth, and of appraisers, who had spent 43 days in personally examining every asset in the schedule, was admissible; it appearing that the witnesses had been in the banking or real-estate business in the city where the property was situated for many years, and that they were well acquainted with the financial standing of people there, and with the values of city property.

7. Where the bill of exceptions does not present copies of documents concerning which witnesses were examined, objections to their testimony in reference thereto cannot be considered.

8. On the trial of a bank officer for receiving deposits, knowing that the bank was insolvent, evidence that depositors demanded their money, and of the refusal of the bank employés to pay them, is admissible, whether or not defendant personally heard the demands, to show the failure of the bank to meet its obligations in the ordinary course of business.

9. On an issue as to the value of certain stock held by a bank at the date of its assignment, the court properly refused to permit a witness to state the value of a building owned by the corporation which issued such stock, based on his knowledge of its cost.

10. It having been shown that the stock had a value, the inquiry, at most, should have been confined to the market value of the real estate at the date of the bank's assignment.

11. Evidence of the value of a corporation's realty is only received to show the value of its stock in the absence of better evidence.

12. If a bank employé, by authority of his superior officer, given before the latter had knowledge that the bank was insolvent, receives a deposit after its insolvency, such officer, unless he revoked the authority after he became aware of the condition of the bank, will be liable to prosecution under Rev. St. 1889, § 3581, making it a crime for a bank officer to assent to the receipt of a deposit, knowing that the bank is in failing circumstances.

13. An instruction, in the language of the statute, that the failure of the bank "is prima facie evidence of knowledge on the part of its cashier that the same was in failing circumstances," coupled with a statement that "prima facie evidence is such that raises such a degree of probability in its favor that it must prevail unless it be rebutted, or the contrary proved," is not erroneous. State v. Buck, 25 S. W. 573, 120 Mo. 479, followed.

14. Where an indictment under Rev. St. 1889, § 3581, contains a count for receiving a deposit, knowing that the bank is insolvent, and another count for assenting to the creation of an indebtedness by the bank, with such knowledge, and the evidence shows but one transaction, which consisted in receiving a deposit and issuing a certificate therefor, a general verdict of guilty, without specifying on which count, is sufficient.

Appeal from criminal court, Jackson county; John W. Wofford, Judge.

Elmer C. Sattley was convicted of larceny, under Rev. St. 1889, § 3581, and appeals. Affirmed.

The defendant was indicted in the criminal court of Jackson county, at Kansas City, at the September term, 1893, for grand larceny, under section 3581, Rev. St. 1889, for having, as cashier of the Kansas City Safe-Deposit & Savings Bank, unlawfully and feloniously received a deposit of $300, the property of Mrs. Christina Vogt, when said bank was in failing circumstances, after he had knowledge it was in that condition; and, in another count, for having assented to the creation of an indebtedness by said bank, issuing to said Christina Vogt a certificate of deposit for said $300, payable to the order of Mrs. Mary Seitzler or Mrs. E. Vogt, due six months after the date thereof, to wit, July 10, 1893, and bearing 5 per cent. interest until maturity. Defendant was duly arraigned, and entered a plea of not guilty. After a change of venue to Independence, the cause was finally tried in July, 1894, and the defendant convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of four years. Though sentenced by the court in August, 1894, the transcript of this appeal was not filed in this court until April 29, 1895, — too late for a hearing at the April term. Such delays are inexcusable. We again call the attention of the circuit and criminal courts to this dilatory practice. It is fast becoming a reproach to the administration of the law.

The Kansas City Safe Deposit & Savings Bank was organized in March, 1883, with a capital stock of $50,000. The defendant, Sattley, was one of its officers and a member of its board of directors from 1886, continuously, until it failed and made an assignment for the benefit of its creditors, on July 10, 1893. For seven years prior to its collapse, defendant was cashier of the bank, and, together with the president thereof, had actual, absolute control of its affairs. H. P. Churchill was president until 1891, when he was succeeded by J. C. Darragh, who continued as president until the failure, on July 10, 1893. The by-laws, to which the witnesses for the state and defendant both very often refer in their testimony, are not preserved in the bill of exceptions; and much of the statements of counsel as to what said by-laws would establish cannot be substantiated by the record, or considered in making up our judgment. The bill of exceptions recites that it contains "all the oral testimony given and offered upon the trial," "but does not include copies of documentary evidence introduced and offered and admitted in said cause, but it contains a statement and description of each piece of documentary evidence." The reports of the bank officers to the secretary of the state, some six in number, upon which pages of the oral testimony are based, and without which we can form no adequate idea of the effect of such evidence, or the rulings of the trial court thereon, is entirely omitted. The so-called abstract of the evidence is not indexed, and we have been put to much unnecessary and fruitless labor, endeavoring to corroborate points made by counsel by reference to the record. Knowing as we do the ability of the counsel who prepared this bill, and having had on other occasions so many proofs of their ability and industry in preparing statements and abstracts for this court, we are greatly surprised at the lax and unsatisfactory condition of this abstract.

The business of the institution was that of a savings bank, the bulk of the deposits being by the poorer classes, — sewing women, servant girls, washerwomen, mechanics, and day laborers. The bank kept open every Saturday and Monday night until 8 o'clock, in order to receive the earnings and small savings of laborers. When it closed its doors on July 10, 1893, it had only $11,000 in cash in its vaults, whereas its liabilities aggregated $2,039,068; having, in other words, less than one-half of 1 per cent. of its liabilities to its depositors on hand in cash. The bank had been greatly crippled by a run on it in 1891. The officers of the bank seem to have conducted it without any regard whatever for the safety of their depositors. The defendant, Sattley, was indebted directly and indirectly to the bank in the sum of $85,000, for which the bank held securities worth about $5,000. The president, Darragh, directly and by way of indorsement, owed the bank $164,000, with security worth about $96,000. But the most glaring of all the schemes for swallowing up the money of the depositors were the transactions with the Realty Investment Company. This institution was organized in Kansas City, January 25, 1890, with a nominal capital of $100,000. Sattley was the secretary and treasurer of this realty company, and a young clerk in the employ of the bank was its president. The office of this company was in a small room over the bank. By the manipulation of Sattley, with the assistance of Darragh, $416,400 of the bank's money was turned over to this realty company, and when the bank collapsed all the security it had was some property which was assessed at $63,250, — a loss exceeding by $50,000 the total capital stock...