McKnight v. United States

• Decision Date: 06 May 1902
• Docket Number: 1,078.
• Citation: 115 F. 972
• Parties: McKNIGHT v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

115 F. 972

McKNIGHT v. UNITED STATES.

No. 1,078.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

May 6, 1902

A. E Richards and W. C. P. Breckinridge, for plaintiff in error.

R. F Hill, for defendant in error.

Before LURTON, DAY, and SEVERENS, Circuit Judges.

DAY Circuit Judge.

This case having been before this court upon former writs of error, it is unnecessary to state in detail the facts upon which it depends. McKnight v. U.S., 38 C.C.A. 115 97 F. 208; Id., 49 C.C.A. 594, 111 F. 735. We shall proceed to notice some of the assignments of error:

I. Upon the question of the burden of proof to establish the intent of the accused to defraud the bank in doing the acts charged the court, in response to a request of the defendant, gave the charge as follows:

'On motion of the defendant the court instructs the jury that intent is a fact to be proved as any other fact; it is the state of mind with which an act is done; it is the motive from which an act springs; and in this case a fraudulent intent is the purpose of the defendant to do an act to defraud or cheat the bank, and to convert to his own use the sums of money set out in counts Nos. 2 and 39; in which he is charged with embezzlement with such fraudulent intent; and unless the jury believe that it has been established by the testimony beyond a reasonably doubt, as a fact existing at the time that the act was so done, it is the duty of the jury to acquit. The court has given this charge No. 11, asked for by the defendant, and now the court further charges you that the rule of law in regard to intent in this case is this: The intent to defraud is to be inferred from willfully and knowingly doing that which is wrongful or illegal, and which, in its necessary consequences and results, must injure another. The intent may be presumed from the doing of the wrongful or fraudulent or illegal act. But this inference or presumption is not necessarily conclusive. There may be other evidence which may satisfy the jury that there was no such intent, but such inference or presumption throws the burden of proof upon the defendant, and the evidence upon him in rebuttal to do away with that presumption of guilty intent must be sufficiently strong to satisfy you beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no such guilty intent in such transaction. The presumption is that a person intends the natural and probable consequence of acts intentionally done, and that an unlawful act implies an unlawful intent. The law presumes that every man intends the legitimate consequences of his own acts. Wrongful acts knowingly or intentionally committed can neither be justified nor excused on the ground of innocent intent. The intent to injure or defraud is presumed when the unlawful act which results in loss or injury is proved to have been knowingly committed. It is a well-settled rule, which the law applies in both criminal and civil cases, that the intent is presumed and inferred from the result of the action. If, therefore, you believe from the evidence, to the exclusion of a reasonable doubt, that the defendant willfully and knowingly appropriated to his own uses either the $2,000 of the bank's money mentioned in one count of the indictment, or the $3,736.60 of the bank's money mentioned in the other count thereof, or both of those sums, then from those facts, if proved to your satisfaction, you should deduce the presumption that he intended thereby to injure or defraud the said bank in either or both instances which such character of appropriation was made, if at all, by the defendant. This presumption, however, as I have said, is not conclusive; still, when it is drawn by you from the evidence, it would be sufficient to support a conclusion that the intent of the defendant in willfully and knowingly appropriating those parts of the bank's money to his own use, if that was done, was to injure or defraud the bank, unless this presumption is overcome, or rebutted by evidence in behalf of the defendant, or other evidence in the case. Agnew v. U.S., 165 U.S. 49, 17 Sup.Ct. 235, 41 L.Ed. 624.'

To the part of the charge as to the shifting of the burden of proof, counsel for the defendant took a specific exception. This portion of the charge is as follows:

'But this inference or presumption is not necessarily conclusive. There may be other evidence which may satisfy the jury that there was no such intent. But such inference or presumption throws the burden of proof upon the defendant, and the evidence upon his in rebuttal to do away with that presumption of guilty intent must be sufficiently strong to satisfy you beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no such guilty intent in the transaction.'

When exception was taken to this language, the learned trial judge responded:

'That takes only a part of it, and it takes it out of its connection; but the court thinks the whole connection expresses the law accurately, because it is expressed in the exact language of the supreme court of the United States, but taking out some part of it may not make it entirely accurate. The court will not undertake to modify that particular part for the reason indicated.'

It is elementary law that the burden of proof to establish the commission of a crime, and every essential element thereof, rests upon the prosecution. The statute under cover of which McKnight was prosecuted makes it essential, in order to work conviction, that the acts charged shall be done with intent to defraud the bank. In the absence of such intent, however culpable the acts charged may be, there can be no conviction for a violation of this part of the law. McKnight v. U.S., 49 C.C.A. 594, 111 F. 735. How is this intent to be proven? In view of the fact that intent or purpose is involved in a mental process which can only be known to the actor, the law requires only such proof as the nature of the thing to be proven admits; and it has long been the practice to instruct juries in such trials that the intent may be proven by the act done, and that one may be presumed to have intended the natural and probable consequences of acts intentionally done. This is a rule of logical probability from the usual course of events, rather than a conclusive legal presumption. The presumption is a rebuttable one, and, if other proof in the case shall repel the presumption which would ordinarily arise from the things done, the jury is under no necessity of resorting to presumptions, but should give weight to the facts which show the lack of intent or purpose in the particular case. This method of making proof of intent to defraud, as necessarily flowing from acts whose legitimate tendency is to defraud, does not absolve the prosecution from the requirement of showing intent, when that is an essential element of the crime, by the rule of evidence which requires proof in criminal cases to be sufficiently certain as to exclude reasonable doubt of guilt. If the burden of proof shifted to the defendant when the prosecution has introduced testimony from which the jury, in the absence of other proof, may infer the presence of guilty purpose or intent,-- especially if the defendant was required to establish this want of intent beyond a reasonable doubt,-- the accused may be convicted when the proof leaves in the minds of the jurors a reasonable doubt of his guilt as to an essential element of the crime. In the present case, if the jury should find that the natural and probable consequence of the acts of McKnight charged and proven under the counts of the indictment was to defraud the bank, then the jury would be authorized to conclude that such was his purpose, in the absence of proof in the case rendering such inference inadmissible. While the jury may be properly instructed as to the manner in which intent-- 'dwelling in the mind, invisible to t he outward sight'-- may be proven from inferences from acts done, the burden of proving evil intent, where an essential element of the crime, is with the prosecution, and does not shift tot he accused. Chaffee v. U.S., 18 Wall. 516, 21 L.Ed. 908; Jones, Ev. Sec. 175; Whart. Cr. Ev. Sec. 344; Com. v. McKie, 1 Gray, 61, 61 Am.Dec. 410.

The learned judge justified the charge given in this respect by the case of Agnew v. U.S., 165 U.S. 36, 17 Sup.Ct. 235, 41 L.Ed. 624. That case was a prosecution against a bank cashier for violation of the section of the statute under which McKnight is prosecuted in this case. The question here involved arose on exception to that part of the charge of the court which said:

'The rule of law in regard to intent is that intent to defraud is to be inferred from willfully and knowingly doing that which is illegal, and which, in its necessary consequences and results, must injure another. The intent may be presumed from the doing of the wrongful or fraudulent or illegal act, and in this case, if you find that the defendant placed that which was worthless or of little value among the assets of the bank at a greatly exaggerated value, and had that exaggerated value placed to his own personal account upon the books of the bank, from such finding of fact you must necessarily infer that the intent with which he did that act was to injure or defraud the bank, but this inference or presumption is not necessarily conclusive. There may be other evidence which may satisfy the jury that there was no such intent, but such an inference or presumption throws the burden of proof upon the defendant, and the evidence upon him in rebuttal to do away with that presumption of guilty intent must be sufficiently strong to satisfy you beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no such guilty intent in such transaction.'

On this charge the chief justice said:

'Undoubtedly in criminal cases the burden of...