People v. Wells
| Decision Date | 25 April 1860 |
| Citation | 8 Mich. 104 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | The People v. Revilo Wells |
Heard April 21, 1860
J. M Howard, attorney-general, for the people.
T Romeyn, for defendant.
Martin, Ch. J. was absent.
Christiancy J.:
The questions involved in this case arise upon the indictment and the special verdict.
The first and fourth counts charged, in substance, that the defendant, not being authorized by law to do a regular banking business and to issue bank-bills, "did issue a certain draft in the similitude of a bank-bill," setting forth the draft.
The second count charges that defendant, "did issue a certain draft to be put in circulation as money."
The Third, that he "did issue" the draft "to be used as a currency or circulating medium."
The fifth, that he issued it "to be loaned or put in circulation as money;" and the sixth, that he issued it "to pass or be used as a currency or circulating medium. All the counts set forth the same draft in hoec verba.
All these counts, then, charge the defendant with having "issued" the draft, and it is manifest from the statute upon which the indictment is founded (Comp. L., § 5899), that the substantive offence, in every form defined by the section, consists in the issuing of the paper therein described; that, whatever, other ingredients may be required to complete the offense, if the defendant did not "issue" the paper, he has committed no offense under this section.
Have the jury, by their special verdict, found that the defendant issued the paper as set forth in any count of the indictment? This is the first question, and if decided in the negative no other question can properly arise.
The special verdict, so far as this point is involved, only finds that the defendant "did pay out" the paper in question to one Miles Lattimer, on a check drawn upon the defendant.
The court can add nothing to this finding; they can draw only the legal conclusions from the facts found. No facts can be inferred by the court which the jury have not inferred and set forth; especially against a defendant in a criminal case. To this verdict the maxim applies, in its full force, "de non apparentibus et non existentibus, eadem est ratio, et judicium."
This verdict does not find that the defendant is the same person whose name purports to be signed to the acceptance set forth in the indictment, or that he had any connection with or interest in the "Savings and Exchange bank of R. Wells," upon which the draft purports to be drawn; nor that he was a banker, or in any manner connected with, responsible for, or interested in the paper in question, except what is to be inferred from the single fact of paying it out upon a check drawn upon him.
None of these facts, which the verdict has omitted, can be supplied by the court.
We are compelled, therefore, to consider the defendant as no otherwise connected with, or responsible for the issue of this paper, than any other individual would be by the naked fact of paying it out upon a check or order drawn upon him; and the question is whether such "paying out" is necessarily equivalent to, or identical with the "issuing" of the paper, within the meaning of this statute?
We do not think this is the fair import of the term "issue" as here used.
This section, so far as relates to the present question, is the same found in section five, of chapter fifty, of the Revised Statutes of 1846. The chapter is there entitled, "Of unauthorized banking, and certain notes or evidences of debt issued by banks." The amendment of 1853 (Laws of 1853, p. 20) in no way affects the present question. An examination of the chapter, as it now stands (Comp. L., §§ 5895 to 5903), will, we think, show very clearly that the term is not used in the sense of merely passing, or paying out, by a person in no way a party to the paper, nor connected, as principal or agent, with its original issue, and who is to derive no profit or benefit from the illegal enterprise.
By the first section, "no person unauthorized by law, shall subscribe to, or become a member or in...
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...that the jury may elect to announce only their factual findings and request the court to apply the law to the facts. But see People v. Wells, 8 Mich. 104 (1860).22 4 Blackstone, p. 354.See also 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed.), p. 679:"[The jury] are not obliged in any case to......
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