Finger v. State, No. 771S196

• Docket Nº: No. 771S196
• Citation: 260 Ind. 148, 293 N.E.2d 25, 35 Ind.Dec. 410
• Case Date: March 07, 1973
• Court: Supreme Court of Indiana

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293 N.E.2d 25 260 Ind. 148 Paul E. FINGER, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee. No. 771S196. Supreme Court of Indiana. March 7, 1973.

[260 Ind. 149] Frank E. Spencer, Indianapolis, for appellant.

Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Paul H. Frazier, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellee.

PRENTICE, Justice.

Defendant (Appellant) was convicted in 1968 of uttering a forged check under Acts of 1905, ch. 169, § 676, 1956 Repl. Burns Ind.Stat.Ann. § 10--2102, IC 1971, 35--1--124--1. He was sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two nor more than fourteen years. His appeal to this Court is taken from an adverse ruling upon a belated motion to correct errors and presents two issues:

(1) Insufficiency of the evidence.

(2) Violation of his Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel at his trial.

Neither issue has merit.

(1) The evidence, viewed most favorably to the State, discloses that the defendant presented a payroll check to the manager of the 7--11 Market in Indianapolis and asked that it be cashed. The check was purportedly drawn by the J. J. Hoffman Co. and payable to the order of Alex Williams. Upon request for identification, Defendant gave the manager a photo copy of the record of birth of one Mary Alice Williams, which record named Alex Williams as her father. When the manager indicated his reluctance to cash the check and advised the defendant that it was not even his check, the defendant replied that he had taken it as payment for a television set which he had sold. The manager being suspicious, telephoned both the bank and the Hoffman Company and learned that the check was one in a series of printed check forms previously stolen from the Hoffman Company and that the blanks had

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been filled in and the signature added by forgery. He so advised the defendant, who insisted that he had taken it in payment for the television set. Unknown to the defendant, the manager also summoned the police by an [260 Ind. 150] alarm system. Testimony from representatives of the Hoffman Company and the bank established that the check had been stolen, was not signed by an authorized person and that neither the defendant nor Alex Williams were employees or otherwise creditors of the Hoffman Company. The defendant remained in the store for a period of approximately five minutes while the foregoing transpired. He was aware of the manager's telephone calls to the bank and to the Hoffman Company, and although he was aware of their charges of theft and forgery, with respect to the check, he made no attempt to leave. When two police officers arrived in response to the manager's call, however, he and a companion attempted to exit as the first officer entered, but they were grabbed and detained by the second officer, who was entering the premises behind the first.

We hold that the foregoing was sufficient evidence of the defendant's 'intent to defraud,' an essential element of the offense charged. The recent case of McAfee v. State (1973), Ind., 291 N.E.2d 554, is but one in a long line of cases holding that the requisite guilty knowledge and intent may be inferred from circumstantial evidence. The irregularity of the presentment of the check drawn to the order of another person but not endorsed by him with evidence of the identity of such other person, rather than of the presenter, coupled with an unlikely story of having accepted the...