Beck v. State
| Decision Date | 06 June 1958 |
| Citation | 7 McCanless 671,315 S.W.2d 254,203 Tenn. 671 |
| Parties | Jack BECK, Roscoe Roberts and Luther E. Floyd, Plaintiffs in Error, v. STATE of Tennessee, Defendant in Error. 7 McCanless 671, 203 Tenn. 671, 315 S.W.2d 254 |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Roy Asbury, La Follette, for plaintiffs in error.
James M. Glasgow, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Plaintiffs in error, hereinafter called defendants, were jointly indicted and convicted of obtaining money under false pretenses and each was sentenced to serve three years in the State Penitentiary.
The first question raised by the assignments which we will dispose of is that the evidence preponderates against the verdict and judgment below. The State's proof presents a picture of a very clever scheme executed by these three defendants by which the prosecutor, Ike L. Moore, was bilked of $7,000 in money. Beck, operating under the alias of L. E. Berry, initiated the scheme by contacting Moore and inquiring whether he would be interested in purchasing a quantity of whisky at a reasonable price. He indicated that he was in a position to arrange for the transaction. Upon receiving a favorable reply from Moore, Beck returned a few days later to Chattanooga bringing with him Roberts, operating under the alias of Bradford. They then told Moore that the sheriff of Morgan County had the whisky for sale under a court order and told him that they would arrange for the purchase by Moore of 212 cases of confiscated whisky having Tennessee Stamps thereon. About a week later Roberts telephoned Moore to meet him at the courthouse in Wartburg so that the details could be worked out and agreed upon. More, accompanied by a friend, Smith, who had no interest in the transaction, met Roberts on the courthouse steps, as directed. He took Moore inside the courthouse where he introduced him to Floyd, who represented himself to be the chief deputy sheriff of Morgan County by the name of Fred Pollard.
Floyd then stated that the whisky was taken from a wrecked truck and that the court had ordered it to be sold. He agreed to sell the 212 cases at $35 a case and guaranteed safe delivery of the whisky through the intervening dry territory to Hamilton County by the use of two other deputy sheriffs of Morgan County as escorts. The prosecutor testified also that Beck and Roberts guaranteed safe delivery to Hamilton County.
Some days later Roberts telephoned Moore to bring his own truck to Wartburg and pursuant thereto Moore borrowed $3,500 from his friend Miller and the two of them drove to Wartburg in a car and a third man drove the truck. In the middle of the afternoon they met Floyd in front of the courthouse in Wartburg and Floyd then directed Miller to have the truck driven to the side of the jail, which was a block or two away. Miller went with the truck and, in his absence, Floyd requested Moore to make the payment of the $7,000 which was done. Floyd then told Moore it would take about 15 minutes to procure the two deputies who would escort the truck and that he would have to go and find them. Floyd, having obtained the money, walked through the courthouse, drove away in a car and disappeared.
After waiting about an hour, Moore realized that he had been defrauded. He thereupon reported the affair to the sheriff's office. The next time Moore saw Roberts and Floyd, the latter two were in jail in Georgia and were afterwards convicted of a similar offense in that state.
Beck did not testify but Roberts and Floyd denied that they participated in the transaction and Floyd denied that he had ever seen Moore before. No one else testified in behalf of the defendants.
From the above recital, it is easy to understand why the jury found the parties guilty and it is clear that the evidence does not preponderate in favor of their innocence, so this assignment must be overruled.
There was a motion to quash the indictment on the ground that it did not allege facts constituting the crime, which motion was overruled. Predicated on that general statement, several grounds were assigned in the motion for a new trial which are now repeated in the several assignments of error, which in substance are as follows: That said indictment does not charge an offense either in the language of the statute or a statute and does not contain a description of a particular offense; that more than one offense may be carved out of the indictment and thus distinct and different offenses cannot be charged in the one count as was done in this indictment; that there was a misjoinder of parties in that the felonies attempted to be charged are in their nature several and personal.
The indictment is rather full and detailed and contains the necessary elements to charge a violation of the statute on false pretenses, T.C.A. Sec. 39-1901, as set out in State v. Morgan, 109 Tenn. 157, 69 S.W. 970. Those elements are (1) the pretense, (2) the falsity of same, (3) the felonious and fraudulent intent, (4) the description of the property, and (5) the reliance of the victim upon the representations.
This indictment in...
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State v. Brewer
...the representation is not required to be one calculated to defraud a person of ordinary prudence and caution. Beck v. State, 203 Tenn. 671, 676, 315 S.W.2d 254, 256 (1958). The principles which govern this court's review of a conviction by a jury are well settled. This court must review the......
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State v. Lequire
...co-conspirator commits the target crime in the absence of the other, the absent one is equally guilty as a principal. Beck v. State, 203 Tenn. 671, 315 S.W.2d 254 (1958); Pierce v. State, 130 Tenn. 24, 168 S.W. 851 (1914). Once a conspiracy has been established, evidence of any act or decla......
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...himself with the bank's attorney in accepting the fraudulent check, which the defendant pretended to be valid. See Beck v. State, 203 Tenn. 671, 315 S.W.2d 254 (1958). The evidence supports the finding of the jury that the defendant violated the false pretense However, in the context of thi......
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State v. McDonald
...344 U.S. 174, 73 S.Ct. 189, 97 L.Ed. 200 (1952). Section 39--1901 meets these standards. A significant recent case is Beck v. State, 203 Tenn. 671, 315 S.W.2d 254 (1958). There, the Court adopted the holding of State v. Morgan, 109 Tenn. 157, 69 S.W. 970 (1902) and reiterated that the eleme......