People v. Winslow

• Decision Date: 29 October 1878
• Citation: 39 Mich. 505
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: The People v. Henry W. Winslow

39 Mich. 505

The People v. Henry W. Winslow

Supreme Court of Michigan

October 29, 1878

Submitted October 23, 1878

Exceptions before sentence from the Recorder's Court of Detroit.

Conspiracy to defraud by false pretenses. The information charged that Henry W. Winslow and Charles Parker "unlawfully deceitfully and fraudulently did combine, conspire confederate and agree together by divers false pretenses subtile means and devices, to obtain and acquire to themselves of and from one Alfred B. Nicholas, a large sum of money, to wit: the sum of twenty-seven dollars, in money, of the value of twenty-seven dollars, of the money of the said Alfred B. Nicholas, and to cheat and defraud him, the said Alfred B. Nicholas, thereof. The said Henry W. Winslow and Charles Parker, in pursuance of and according to said combination, conspiracy, confederation and agreement between them as aforesaid had, did on the said sixteenth day of April, A. D. 1878, at the city of Detroit aforesaid, by said divers false pretenses, subtile means and devices, unlawfully, falsely, deceitfully and fraudulently obtain and acquire to themselves of and from said Alfred B. Nicholas, and of the moneys, goods and chattels of the said Alfred B. Nicholas hereby twenty-seven dollars, in money, of the value of twenty-seven dollars, with intent to cheat and defraud the said Alfred B. Nicholas thereof, to the great damage and deception of the said Alfred B. Nicholas, and contrary to the form," etc. The respondent was found guilty.

Recorder's Court advised to proceed to judgment on the verdict.

Attorney General Otto Kirchner for the People.

Hawley & Firnane for respondent. A mere promise will not support an information for obtaining money on false pretenses, Tefft v. Windsor, 17 Mich. 486; Com. v. Parker, Thacher Crim. Cas., 24; a prisoner on trial should be protected from abusive language, State v. Smith, 75 N. C., 306; Ferguson v. State, 49 Ind. 33.

OPINION

Cooley, J.

None of the evidence received on the trial was foreign to the issue except that of the officer Sullivan that he found a small amount of money on the prisoner's person; and it is impossible to conceive that could have worked any prejudice to the prisoner. All the rest had a direct tendency, more or less strong, to support the theory of the prosecution. That theory was that Winslow & Parker, by a false show of business, a false pretense of being about to engage in other business, and by other fraudulent devices to give color to assurances that a situation could and would be procured for Nicholas, had succeeded in defrauding him of his money. The evidence that the conspirators had engaged offices for which they paid no rent was not, as is argued on the part of the prisoner, put in to show that they had been guilty of frauds or wrongs of any sort upon others, but as a part of the showing that the appearances by which Nicholas was deceived were wholly fictions and fraudulent. It is not necessary in a case of this sort to set forth in the information the false pretenses...