Johnson v. State

• Decision Date: 28 November 1899
• Citation: Johnson v. State, 34 S.E. 573, 109 Ga. 208 (Ga. 1899)
• Parties: JOHNSON. v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

34 S.E. 573

109 Ga. 208

JOHNSON.

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Nov. 28, 1899.

FORGERY—INDICTMENT.

An indictment based on section 233 of the Penal Code, and charging the forging of an order for a thing not money, is fatally defective, and will not support a conviction, if it fails to allege that the thing in question was of some value.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from superior court, Floyd county; W. M. Henry, Judge.

Jim Johnson was convicted of forgery, and brings error. Reversed.

R. L. Chamlee and George A. H. Harris & Son, for plaintiff in error.

Moses Wright, Sol. Gen., for the State.

LUMPKIN, P. J. The indictment in this case was founded upon section 233 of the Penal Code, which makes felonious the act of forging "an order for money or other thing of value" with intent to defraud. The accused was charged with forging "an order for meat on Dowdle & Watkins, who were running a meat market in the city of Rome, * * * with intent then and there to defraud the said Dowdle & Watkins." After conviction, he moved in arrest of judgment and also for a new trial. Both motions were overruled, and he excepted. In the view we take of the case, it is necessary to deal with one point only, and it is presented in the motion in arrest of judgment, viz. that the indictment was fatally defective, in that it failed to allege that the forged order was for a thing of value. We think this point was well taken. It was within the power of the general assembly, if it had seen proper so to do, to make criminal the fraudulent forging of an order for any article or thing, whether the same was valuable or not If the law had been thus framed, an indictment thereunder would have been sufficient if it had charged the forging with intent to defraud of an order for anything, without alleging that the same was of some value. But the law was not thus framed. It plainly and unmistakably con-templates, as an essential element of this particular kind of forgery, that the article mentioned or described in the forged order must have intrinsic value. Two things, therefore, are requisite in a case of this kind, viz. an intent to defraud, and value in the thing sought to be obtained by means of the forgery. It is conceivable that a man might, with such an intent in his breast, forge an order with the design of fraudulently getting possession of something of no pecuniary value; but the lawmaking power did not choose to declare an act of this kind indictable. Accordingly, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that there can be no criminal forgery, under that particular portion of section 233 of the Penal Code with which we are now dealing, unless the article named or referred to...