McGhee v. State
| Decision Date | 13 October 1945 |
| Citation | 189 S.W.2d 826,183 Tenn. 20 |
| Parties | McGHEE v. STATE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Error to Criminal Court, Hamilton County; L. D. Miller, Judge.
Edward McGhee was convicted of forgery and knowingly uttering a forged paper, and he brings error.
Judgment affirmed.
G. W. Chamlee and G. W. Chamlee, Jr., both of Chattanooga, for plaintiff in error.
Nat Tipton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
This is an appeal from a conviction under an indictment with two counts, charging (1) forgery and (2) knowingly uttering a forged paper. The jury rendered a general verdict of guilty with the punishment fixed at eleven months and twenty-nine days.
The assignments of error challenge the sufficiency of the evidence and the refusal of the trial judge to grant a new trial upon the strength of affidavits offering evidence alleged to be newly discovered. Incidentally, complaint is made of the action of the trial judge in striking certain of these affidavits because of their insufficiency and irrelevancy; and, also, objection is urged to the admissibility of a confession made to a police officer.
The defendant is a young man eighteen years of age employed at night at Signal Mountain Cement Company, located in a suburb of Chattanooga. He resided with a married sister in upstairs rooms above the store of the prosecutor, Mose Sacks, located on Market Street, in Chattanooga. The parties were well acquainted. This forgery case was heard at the same time with another case in which the defendant was prosecuted on a charge of assault with a pistol in the course of a personal difficulty shortly after the forged check had been presented to the prosecutor in his store and cashed by him. The jury passing on the two charges at the same time acquitted the defendant in the assault case, apparently upon the theory that the prosecutor was the aggressor, provoked, as the record indicates, by the discovery of the forgery and incident to an attempt on his part to force the defendant to return to him the money advanced upon this forged check. Due in part to the hearing of these two charges at the same time, the record is somewhat confused and unsatisfactory. Unraveling the record as best we can, the relevant facts with regard to the passing of the check appear to be about as follows:
On a Saturday morning in April, 1944, about 9:30, the defendant presented the check in question to the prosecutor, as he had other checks issued on other occasions to him by the Signal Mountain Cement Company, in payment of his wages. He made some purchases and was paid in cash the difference between the face of the check and the amount of his purchases. Shortly after the defendant left the store it occurred to the prosecutor that the amount of this check was considerably larger than the customary pay checks for a week's work which he had previously handled for the defendant, and becoming suspicious he at once carried it to the office of the Signal Mountain Cement Company and was advised that the check had been altered and the amount raised. Returning to his store he met the defendant on the sidewalk and charged him with having passed on him this raised check. The facts thus far stated are uncontradicted. There is a conflict as to just what passed between the parties at this point and to what extent, if any, defendant there and then admitted responsibility for the raising of the check. However, there is no dispute about the fact that this check was presented to the prosecutor by the defendant on that morning, and that the prosecutor paid him in goods and cash the face value of the check. Nor is there any doubt upon the record of the fact, as testified by an official of the company, that this check had been raised when shown to him by the prosecutor a few minutes after the prosecutor had cashed it.
The defendant, not denying that he presented this check to the prosecutor, as above stated, and received goods and cash thereon in the amount of its face, denied only that he had raised the check. The claim made in his behalf, without testimony to support it, appears to be that the check was raised after he passed it to the prosecutor; that he had nothing to do with the alteration of the check and knew nothing about it. The figures on the face of the check are typed on a machine adapted to this purpose and the figures are complicated, showing total wages earned with tax and other deductions.
The case apparently narrows to the determinative issue of fact whether or not this check was presented to the prosecutor in its present concededly altered and raised form or amount, or was raised and altered after the prosecutor received it. The jury by its verdict, approved by the trial judge, found this issue of fact against the defendant, and we find no preponderance of evidence against this finding.
In the first place, it is a well settled rule that the credibility of the witnesses is a matter for the jury. In the second place, undisputed circumstances appear to sustain the contention of the prosecutor that he found...
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Taylor v. State
...State, 43 Tenn. 362; Moody v. State, 159 Tenn. 245, 17 S.W.2d 919; Wynn v. State, 181 Tenn. 325, 181 S.W.2d 332; McGhee v. State, 183 Tenn. 20, 189 S.W.2d 826, 164 A.L.R. 617. It is not duress to bring an accused and his accuser face to face. Nor is it an uncommon practice during the invest......
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Robertson v. State
...does not render inadmissible statements made by him to officers. Wynn v. State, 181 Tenn. 325, 181 S.W.2d 332; McGhee v. State, 183 Tenn. 20, 189 S.W. 2d 826, 164 A.L.R. 617. We find no error in the judgment of the lower court and it is All concur. ...
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Robertson v. State
... ... but the trial judge sustained the exception thereto and ... excluded them. The fact that one is under arrest does not ... render inadmissible statements made by him to officers ... Wynn v. State, 181 Tenn. 325, 181 S.W.2d 332; ... McGhee v. State, 183 Tenn. 20, 189 S.W.2d 826, 164 ... A.L.R ... ...
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Bullock v. Com.
...by one who utters or attempts to utter it raises a conclusive presumption that the possessor forged it. See McGhee v. State, 183 Tenn. 20, 189 S.W.2d 826, 164 A.L.R. 617; Smith v. Commonwealth (Ky.), 307 S.W.2d 201. However, this is undoubtedly the minority view. As is said in the annotatio......