In re Truman

• Decision Date: 31 March 1869
• Citation: In re Truman, 44 Mo. 181 (Mo. 1869)
• Parties: In re HARRY TRUMAN, on habeas corpus.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

44 Mo. 181

In re HARRY TRUMAN, on habeas corpus.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1869.

Petition for writ of habeas corpus.

Mauro & Jones, for petitioner.

I.Congress must delegate the power to punish for counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States to the States, and the States must pass laws for the purpose, ere the State courts can have jurisdiction of such offenses.Congress has not done so. (1 U. S. Stat. at Large, 78, § 11.)There is no act that does so authorize.( Vide Act of Congress, of April 21, 1866;2 U. S. Stat. at Large, 404, § 4;Act of Congress, of March 3, 1825;4 U. S. Stat. at Large, 115, § 26;Laws of U. S. 1863-4, p. 221, § 10 et seq.)

II.This State has failed to enact any law to carry such power into effect.Under this indictment he was convicted of forgery in the second degree.Sections 3-11, ch. 202,Gen. Stat. 1865(p. 793 et seq.), are not applicable.Section 9 relates exclusively to the making or uttering of notes, bills, drafts, etc., of banks incorporated under the laws of this State or some other State or county.

CURRIER, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

At a special term of the Johnson County Circuit Court, Truman was arraigned, tried, and found guilty of forgery in the second degree, upon an indictment charging the passing by him, with intent to defraud, of a fifty-dollar United States compound interest treasury note.He was thereupon sentenced to imprisonment in the State penitentiary for a term of six years, and was thereto committed in accordance with the sentence.He is now brought before this court in obedience to a writ of habeas corpus, with a view to his discharge from further imprisonment, upon the ground that the court trying him had no jurisdiction of the offense charged in the indictment.

It is urged in behalf of the prisoner that the courts of the United States, under the national constitution, have exclusive jurisdiction of the supposed offense, at least until Congress shall delegate the power to legislate upon the subject to the States; that Congress has delegated no such power, and that, if it had, the State has failed to exercise it by passing laws making the alleged facts an offense.It is therefore insisted that the judgment of the Johnson County Circuit Court in the premises is void and of no effect, and that the imprisonment of Truman is unwarranted and illegal.

The decision of this court in Mattison v. The State, 3 Mo. 421, to which we are referred, has ceased to be an authority of force on the constitutional question therein involved, since repeated contrary decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States, of a later date, have established an opposite doctrine.(Fox v. State of Ohio, 5 How. 410;Moore v. State of Illinois, 14 How. 13.)The facts charged in the indictment under consideration are of a nature to constitute an offense as well against the State as against the United States; and although Congress might, perhaps, by appropriate legislation, render the jurisdiction of the national courts exclusive, still, as it does not appear to have done so, the jurisdiction of the State courts is not suspended.The indictment, therefore, is not to be held bad, and the judgment upon it void, for the reason that an indictment would lie, under the laws of the United States, before the national courts, for the same acts as an offense against the United States.(See 1 Bishop on Crim. Law, par. 613, and the numerous authorities there cited.)

It is claimed, however, that the State has passed no laws making the fraudulent passing of counterfeit treasury notes an offense.Section 9, ch. 202,Gen. Stat. 1865, is pointed to as the only provision of the statute under which the indictment found against Truman can be supposed to have been framed.This section and the preceding one has exclusive reference to paper connected with, issued by, or drawn upon banking corporations, and, as a United States treasury note does not belong to this class of paper, the conclusion is reached that the fraudulent passing of counterfeits of such notes is not a criminal offense under our State legislation.This conclusion does not seem to be warranted, since there are other provisions of the statute bearing upon the subject.In a subsequent section of the same chapter (§ 21) it is provided that “every person who, with intent to defraud, shall pass, utter, or publish as true, any forged, counterfeited, or falsely uttered ...