People v. Sharp
| Decision Date | 30 April 1884 |
| Citation | 53 Mich. 523,19 N.W. 168 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. SHARP. |
A mortgage is within the statute against forgery.
Neither witnesses nor acknowledgment are necessary to make a mortgage actually binding.
An acknowledgment may be treated as a part of the conveyance itself.
A note and mortgage given to secure it form such a connected transaction, that there is no impropriety in including the forgery and uttering of both in the same prosecution.
All circumstances tending to explain a fraud, and its extent and character, may be given in evidence.
Representations from S. to a mortgagee and another that he is B., and owns B.'s property, his preparation of a note and mortgage and retention of them for signature, and his returning them to the mortgagee signed with B.'s name, held sufficient evidence of forgery and uttering.
It is proper to show by a supposed acknowledging officer and a subscribing witness, although the latter was not named in the information, that they did not sign the papers.
It is not necessary, in setting out the legal purport of a paper in an information, to give the names of the subscribing witnesses.
Where the failure to preserve a paper is sufficiently explained its contents may be stated in evidence.
Evidence of a sheriff's inability to find or hear of any such person as witnessed an instrument is admissible to show that a name is fictitious; and the extent of his search and his opportunities go to the weight, but not to the competency, of his evidence.
Error to Shiawassee.
J.J Van Riper, for the People.
Hugh McCurdy, for defendant and appellant.
Respondent was convicted of the forgery and uttering of a note and mortgage purporting to have been made by Albert C. Bennett payable to James A. Beebe, or bearer, for $500, with intent to defraud Beebe, who lives at Owosso. Respondent, on September 15, 1881, went to Beebe, representing himself to be A.G. Bennett, living in Elsie, and wanted to borrow $500. On Beebe's objecting that he was a stranger he proposed to get a line from Mr. Jones, a family connection of Beebe, and afterwards came back with such a paper representing the value of Bennett's farm to be from $3,000 to $5,000. They then went to Mr. Stewart's bank and had the papers made out and respondent took them away for signature and acknowledgment. He brought them back executed, and Beebe gave him the money.
The exceptions taken present no questions not already settled and need but brief reference. It was held in People v. Caton, 25 Mich. 388, that a...
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