Crawford v. State

• Decision Date: 12 March 1903
• Citation: 43 S.E. 762,117 Ga. 247
• Parties: CRAWFORD. v. STATE. LASTER. v. SAME.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

43 S.E. 762

117 Ga. 247

CRAWFORD.

v.STATE.

LASTER.

v.SAME.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

March 12, 1903.

FALSE PRETENSES — DEFENSES—SUBMISSION TO JURY—CONCEALMENT—INSTRUCTIONS —ARGUMENT OF COUNSEL.

1. Obtaining money by false statements as to title to or interest in real estate may be an offense under the Penal Code of 1895, § 670, even though the true state of the title might have been discovered by an inspection of the records in the clerk's office of the county where the land lies.

2. Silence may be a deceitful means or artful practice within the meaning of the above cited section, but where the defendant claimed that he remained silent because he thought the person alleged to have been deceived knew the true facts, such theory must be submitted to the jury where there was any evidence on which to base a charge, and could properly be submitted even though such contention only appeared from the defendant's statement.

3. Concealment of a material fact would not be an offense under that section, unless the concealment was fraudulent, and intended to de-ceive, and was purposely resorted to as a means of obtaining money or other thing of value from a person who was actually deceived thereby.

4. Failure to give a proper written request is not cured by covering the same principle in the general charge, if it appears that other portions of the general charge detract from that part relied on as a substitute for the special request.

5. Where a defendant in his statement uses i a plat, his counsel may exhibit the same to the jury, and comment thereon in his argument, even though the plat was not introduced in evidence.

6. Expressions of opinion by the court as to what has been proved require the grant of a new trial.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from City Court of Bainbridge; B. B. Bower, Judge.

J. R. Crawford and J. R. D. Laster were convicted of obtaining money on false pretense, and bring error. Reversed.

A. L, Townsend and Arnold & Arnold, for plaintiffs in error.

Albert H. Russell, for the State.

LAMAR, J. The evidence and the controlling question in these two cases being the same, they were argued together in this court.

1. The sources of information as to title to land are generally matters of record, and, since a prudent man would not ordinarily rely on oral statements in respect thereto, it was at one time doubted whether obtaining money under false pretenses could be a crime where the fraudulent representation was as to an interest in land. It is, however, settled law In this state that such an act is a violation of the Penal Code of 1895, § 670. Holton v. State, 109 Ga. 127, 34 S. E. 358. It was an interest in land that was conveyed to Chason, the prosecutor, and, inasmuch as the lease contained no warranty, the law implied none. Civ. Code, § 3613. If Chason could not recover damages for breach of warranty, it does not follow that Crawford and Laster could not be criminally prosecuted, for an inability to recover on the civil side of the court would rather aggravate the offense of obtaining money under false pretenses. But it is altogether probable that on proper proof the prosecutor might have been entitled to recover for deceit under section 3814 of the Civil Code. Pleadings in such a case, however, should set out explicitly the trick or device, and the means by which the silence had operated to induce the prosecutor to part with his money.

2. Since silence may be deceitful means or artful practice (Jones v. State, 97 Ga. 430, 25 S. E. 319, 54 Am. St. Rep. 433), it would have been better for the indictment to have made some allusion to the fact that silence was one of the means by which the money was obtained. No issue, however, was raised as to the sufficiency of the indictment, and it was probably good under the Penal Code of 1895, §929. The case was presented to the jury more on the theory made by the evi dence as to silence than on statements as to the ownership of the land, charged in the indictment as the misrepresentation by which the prosecutor was defrauded. The evidence related more to the innocent representations in May as to the number of acres, than to the silence in September, when the money was obtained. The jury were instructed that if Laster in good faith pointed out to Chason the boundaries of the land which he thought had been bargained to him by Crawford, or if Crawford innocently made the statement in May as to the number of acres, yet if they stood silent at the time the lease was made in September, and received the money, that was equivalent to a false representation made at the time that the money was paid. The indictment says nothing whatever about the quantity of the land, nor about how many acres it contained, nor was any boundary or acreage warranted. The case, therefore, depended largely on the effect of statements made in May, not corrected at the time the money was obtained in September. Laster had bought from Crawford all the land described in the lease from Crawford, and necessarily could not have known as much about the title as the latter. Crawford admits that after the conversation in May he learned that a part of the Harvey place belonged to Fort, and insisted that he thought it was well known that he had conceded Fort's ownership of a part of the land leased, and supposed that for that reason Chason only gave $500 for the timber, instead of $752, first named as the price at which he would consent for the sale to be made. Laster also desired to avail himself of this defense, and we think this theory should have been submitted to the jury in both cases. The failure to do so in Laster's case would entitle him to a new trial, because there was sworn evidence on which to base such a charge. It would have been eminently proper to submit that view In Crawford's case, but, inasmuch as it has been held that the judge is not bound to submit a theory having...