Anson v. People

• Decision Date: 26 October 1893
• Citation: 148 Ill. 494,35 N.E. 145
• Parties: ANSON et al. v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

148 Ill. 494

35 N.E. 145

ANSON et al.

v.PEOPLE.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 26, 1893.

Error to criminal court of Cook county; Jonas Hutchinson, Judge.

H. C. Anson and Calvin Moore were convicted of forgery, and bring error. Affirmed as to Moore, and reversed as to Anson.Chas. Hughes, C. W. Dwight and Hempden Kelsey, for plaintiffs in error.

M. T. Moloney, Atty. Gen., for the People.

SHOPE, J.

Plaintiffs in error were jointly indicted with Henry C. Evans, F. Arthur Langlois, and William H. Henderson for forgery, and for passing and uttering as true and genuine the paper thus charged to have been forged. Henderson, Anson, and Moore were convicted, and sentenced to eight years, severally, in the penitentiary. Anson and Moore severally prosecuted a writ of error. The indictment contains three counts, the first charging the defendants with falsely and feloniously forging a note for the sum of $6,000, dated October 5, 1891, purporting to be made by Lyman A. Strong, Samuel B. Leiter, and Lucinda J. Ingersoll, payable to the order of Henry C. Evans one year after date, with interest at 7 per cent., as per coupons attached, principal and interest payable at the First National Bank, Chicago, Ill., and also charging the felonious making and forging of said coupon notes, and a certain trust deed purporting to be executed on the same day by the same parties, joined with Fannie M. Strong and Fannie O. Leiter, wives, respectively, of said Strong and Leiter, conveying certain lots known as the ‘Park Manor Subdivision,’ etc., in the city of Chicago, to the said Henry C. Evans, to secure the payment of said $6,000 note and coupons. The second and third counts charge the defendants with uttering and passing the same notes and trust deed, knowing the same to be forged, with intent to defraud Whiting G. Press. That said note, coupons, and trust deed were forged is clearly established, and is not controverted. That Henry C. Evans, who purported to be the payee in said notes and grantee in said deed of trust, hypothecated the same as collateral to his note payable to Whiting G. Press & Co., dated October 30, 1891, and obtained from Whiting G. Press $3,000 in money upon the faith of such collateral, was clearly proved, and is likewise uncontroverted. The controversy arising in this case is as to the connecting of plaintiffs in error in the forging, or in the uttering and passing of the forged instruments in writing. Plaintiffs in error having presented separate briefs, and the facts relied upon as connecting them with the commission of the crime being in the main disconnected, their cases must be considered separately.

First, as to defendant Moore, it is insisted that the evidence is insufficient to warrant a conviction. Moore was a contractor engaged in various building enterprises, and, becoming acquainted with Evans, who, as this defendant says, represented himself as having means, proposed furnishing money to be used by Moore and himself in business enterprises, etc., and exhibited the notes and mortgage before mentioned. It appears, and is not controverted, that Moore and Evans executed to one Camp their promissory note, (to whom Moore introduced Evans as a man of means,) on short time, for $600, and Evans put up, as collateral thereto, the forged notes and trust deed, and the money was paid to them by Camp. Shortly afterwards, Evans was introduced to Press by the defendant Henderson, a broker, and negotiations entered upon to procure a loan on Evans' note at 90 days from Press, upon the same collateral, and with the result before mentioned. The forged trust deed purported to be acknowledged in the county of Richland, and state of Ohio, by and before Howard B. Dirlam, a notary public, and the certificate of acknowledgment was attested by the name of said Dirlam as notary public, with his notarial seal. That the deed of trust was not acknowledged by the grantors before said Dirlam at the time and place named in the certificate, or at any other time and place, was clearly proved. Between the 27th day of September and the 5th day of October, 1891, the defendant Moore brought to the office in Chicago, where the witness Arnold was employed, a notarial seal, and left it in the care of the witness Arnold. While it remained in his care, in his desk, the witness took several impressions of the seal. Subsequently Moore and Evans, discovering the impressions, both being present, tore them out of the book in which they had been made, except one, which they apparently did not discover. This impression was produced at the trial, and purported to be the notarial seal of Howard B. Dirlam, of Richland county, Ohio, and the fac simile of the notarial seal attached to the certificate of acknowledgment of the alleged forged trust deed. It will be observed the trust deed bears date October 5, 1891, and purports to have been acknowledged in Richland county, Ohio, on the 10th day of that month. It is shown, also, that said Evans and plaintiff in error Moore, in September or October, 1891, visited the office of the witness Dudenhafer together. Evans had been doing some writing in the office on a legal blank. On the next day, Evans and Moore returned. In the mean time the witness had changed ink, a little different in color from that previously used. Evans, noticing the difference, asked the witness if he had not a fountain pen that had some of the old ink in it. The witness procured him the pen with the old ink, etc. The people, for the purpose of showing the guilty knowledge of the defendants, offered in evidence a note dated ‘Franklin, New Hampshire, August 12th, 1891,’ signed, ‘Edward H. Sturtevant,’ payable three years after date, to the order of Theodore Willmott, at First National Bank, Chicago, Ill., with 6 per cent. interest per annum, for $5,000, and a mortgage describing said note and to secure the same, dated on the same day, on certain lots in the city of Chicago, and purporting to be executed by Edward H. Sturtevant and Amelia Sturtevant, his wife, and acknowledged in the county of Merrimac, and state of New Hampshire, before William H. Brown, a notary public in and for said county, on said 12th day of August, 1891, the certificate of acknowledgment being signed, ‘William H. Brown, Notary,’ and attested by his notarial seal. It is shown that Edward H. Sturtevant had shortly before these transactions purchased the lots described in said mortgage; that Moore knew of the residence of Edward H. Sturtevant, and of his purchase of said property, and claimed a commission for having brought about the sale of the property to Sturtevant through a brother of Sturtevant residing in Chicago. It appears that the signature of Edward H. Sturtevant to the mortgage and note is not his genuine signature. The name of the wife of Edward H. Sturtevant, the owner of the property, and who resides in New Hampshire, is not Amelia, but Ada. On the 3d of February, at the time of Moore's arrest, he communicated to the officers that he could find a notarial seal; that he had seen one Johnson throw one away,-and proceeded with the officers to the corner of Sixty-Ninth street and Michigan avenue, Chicago, and pointed out a pool of water, where he said a seal was thrown. The officers found the seal, produced it in court, and it gave the impression of a fac simile of the seal to the certificate of acknowledgment of the Sturtevant mortgage. It is shown that he told the officers that Johnson got the seals made in a basement at 92 Dearborn street, Chicago; that Johnson ordered them, and he (Moore) furnished the money to pay for them. When the seal was found, the officer, observing that it was the notarial seal of William H. Brown, said to the defendant Moore that it was not the seal they were looking for, and asked him where the other seal was. Moore replied that the officer would have to see Anson, that he had left the other seal with a man named Anson, and that it was so mutilated that it would be of no use. Moore lived about a block from where the seal was found. Moore admits telling the witnesses Elliott and Broderick that he saw Johnson throw a seal away. He says that, as he was going to his work, ‘I saw him throw something in the sewer. I looked afterwards, and made up my mind that it must have been the seal, and from that I said what I did to the detectives.’ The evidence tends to show that the man Johnson, spoken of, was also called Willmott. There is much more in the record tending directly to connect the defendant Moore with the forgery, and the uttering and passing of forged instruments, but, without going into it, enough has been shown to clearly warrant the jury in finding that he not only had guilty knowledge of the crime, but also actually participated in it.

It is, however, urged that there is no evidence tending to show that Moore participated in the intention to defraud the particular person named in the indictment. He was not present at, nor does he seem to have taken any part in, the negotiations resulting in passing the forged paper upon Whiting G. Press. The defendants shown to be present were Evans, Henderson, and Anson. Independently of whether Moore conspired with these defendants to utter and pass the forgeries, it is not necessary, to charge him with the forgery of the instruments, that he should have actually participated in uttering and passing the same. It is sufficient if he forged the paper, or aided or assisted in its forgery, with the intent that it should be uttered as true and genuine. Rose. Crim. Ev. 566; Whart. Crim. Law, §§ 1452-1456; 2 Bish. Crim. Law, § 598. From the intent to pass as good and genuine, the law infers an intent to defraud the person upon whom the forged instrument is actually passed, as well as to defraud the person whose name is forged. Thus, it is said by Bishop, supra: ‘Generally, there are two persons who, legally, may be defrauded,-the one whose name is forged, and the one to whom the...