Mann v. State

• Decision Date: 08 April 1947
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 550.
• Citation: 30 So.2d 462,33 Ala.App. 115
• Parties: MANN v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

30 So.2d 462

33 Ala.App. 115

MANN v. STATE.

8 Div. 550.

Alabama Court of Appeals

April 8, 1947

Rehearing Denied April 22, 1947.

Douglass Taylor and Chas. E. Shaver, both of Huntsville, for appellant.

A A. Carmichael, Atty. Gen., and John O. Harris, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.

HARWOOD Judge.

The indictment against this appellant contained two counts. The first count charges him with uttering a Madison County pay roll check bearing the forged indorsement of E. T. Baker, the payee. The second count charges him with forging the indorsement of E. T. Baker on another and different Madison County pay roll check, and in the alternative uttering said check knowing the same to be forged. Appellant was by a jury found guilty as charged in the indictment, and the court imposed a sentence of imprisonment in the state penitentiary for a term of seven years.

The evidence for the state tended to show that Ernest Christian was foreman for this appellant for a considerable time while appellant served as a Commissioner for Madison County, in District No. 3. Christian kept time of all common labor employees in said district and on each two week pay period turned in a written report to the appellant showing the amounts due the employees during said period. From this report the appellant made up his pay roll. These pay roll sheets made up and signed by the appellant were then turned over to Susie Mae Harper, Clerk of the County Commissioners of Madison County, in charge of the Road and Bridge Fund. She then made up a pay roll from such data furnished by appellant and drew warrants payable to each such listed employee. After approval of such pay rolls by the Commissioners the warrants were receipted for on the pay roll sheets. The appellant receipted for the two warrants payable to E. T. Baker, which were the basis of this prosecution.

Ernest Christian testified that E. T. Baker had never been employed in work for the county in District No. 3, and several other witnesses who had been employed in District No. 3 during the period covered by the pay roll sheets made by appellant and warrants issued pursuant thereto testified that they had never seen Baker so employed.

E. T Baker, the payee of the warrants which were the basis of this prosecution testified that he had never been employed by or worked for Madison County; that he had no knowledge that he was carried on the pay roll sheets of said county; that he had no knowledge that county warrants were issued payable to him, never saw such warrants, never received any money on said warrants, and did not endorse them, and further that he could neither read nor write.

There was received in evidence over the objection of the defendant the two pay roll sheets covering the two warrants the basis of this prosecution, and also some six other pay roll sheets upon which the appellant had receipted for the warrants issued pursuant thereto, the genuineness of appellant's signature on such pay roll sheets having first been established. The solicitor stated at the time of the reception of such evidence it would later be connected by testimony of a handwriting expert who had examined the endorsements on the two warrants in question in comparison with the known handwriting of the appellant appearing on the above mentioned pay roll sheets. All of such pay roll sheets were in our opinion, in view of the subsequent testimony of a handwriting expert, properly received. Section 421, Title 7, Code of Alabama 1940; Hughes v. Holsclaw, 225 Ala. 374, 143 So. 564; Bridgeforth v. Sharpe, 220 Ala. 188, 124 So. 416; Lambert v. State, 234 Ala. 155, 174 So. 298.

Among the grounds of objection to the introduction of the above pay roll sheets was the fact that on some of the sheets certain names appearing thereon had been hidden from view by having placed over them a piece of opaque brown paper tape. Only that portion of the pay roll sheets not taped out were offered in evidence. These exhibits are before us. They bear no evidence that the tape has in any way been tampered with. We cannot see that appellant was in any way injured by the procedure followed in the introduction of the limited portion of the pay roll sheets, such portion being injected into evidence as known handwriting of the appellant to serve as a basis of comparison with the disputed endorsements on the two checks in question.

Mr. C. D. Brooks, an employee of the State Department of Toxicology, after being qualified as a handwriting expert testified that in his opinion the endorsement of the name 'E. T. Baker' on the back of the two warrants set out in the indictment was written by the same person who signed the C. O. Mann signatures on the pay roll sheets. Mr. Brooks gave similar testimony as to the endorsement 'E. T. Baker' or 'Ernest Thomas Baker' appearing on the back of some fourteen other cashed Madison County pay roll warrants drawn during 1943 and 1944, in amounts from $14.86 to $29.82, and payable E. T. Baker, or Ernest Thomas Baker. These fourteen warrants had been received in evidence without objection. Mr. Brooks testified further that in his opinion the alleged forged endorsements were made by the same person who wrote the C. O. Mann signatures(appellant), but with the opposite hand from which he usually wrote.

The appellant as a witness in his own behalf testified that E. T. Baker had been employed by Madison County during the periods covered by the pay roll checks set forth in the indictment. Several witnesses introduced by the defense in the trial below gave testimony tending to corroborate this phase of appellant's testimony. The appellant denied that he had signed the endorsements to the pay roll checks introduced in evidence.

On cross examination appellant was requested to write his name several times on separate sheets of paper with his left hand. The court overruled appellant's counsel's objection to such procedure, and also admitted such signatures in evidence over appellant's objection.

When a witness has denied his signature on a certain writing, it is in the latitude of cross examination to compel the witness in the presence of the court to write his name, and such signature so written becomes a part of the cross examination. Williams v. State, 61 Ala. 33; King v. State, 8 Ala.App. 239, 62 So. 374. There was no abuse of this rule in having appellant write with his left hand in view of the testimony of the handwriting expert.

During the qualifying of the venire, one Odell Baker, in answer to the court's question as to whether any member of the venire was related by blood or marriage to ...