Johnson v. State
| Citation | 34 S.E. 573,109 Ga. 268 |
| Parties | JOHNSON v. STATE. |
| Decision Date | 28 November 1899 |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
An indictment based on section 233 of the Penal Code, and charging the forgoing 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.
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.
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 contemplates 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 continue reading
Request your trial
-
Ayers v. State
...sale, so as to protect himself against rule for contempt, made each and every part of the property valuable to him. In the Johnson Case, 109 Ga. 268, 34 S. E. 573, the court, in showing that judicial cognizance cannot be taken of the fact that meat is a thing of value, gives the reason that......
-
Burns v. State
... ... alleges merely the aggregate value of the articles charged to ... have been stolen.' In that case the court affirmed a ... judgment overruling a special demurrer raising substantially ... the same question as that presented in the instant case. The ... case of Johnson v. State, 109 Ga. 268, 34 S.E. 573, ... is not in point. It was there held that an indictment ... alleging the forging of an order for something other than ... money was fatally defective for failure to allege that the ... thing was of some value. However, there was only one thing to ... be ... ...
-
Ayers v. State
...409. The courts will not take judicial cognizance that any article is of value, unless the law itself so designates it. Johnson v. State, 109 Ga. 268, 34 S.E. 573; Wright v. State, 1 Ga.App. 158 (5), 57 S.E. However, value, just as any other matter of proof, may be shown circumstantially or......
-
Burns v. State
...overruling a special demurrer raising substantially the same question as that presented in the instant case. The case of Johnson v. State, 109 Ga. 268, 34 S.E. 573, is not in point. It was there held that an indictment alleging the forging of an order for something other than money was fata......