Potter v. United States
Decision Date | 17 December 1894 |
Docket Number | No. 531,531 |
Parties | POTTER v. UNITED STATES |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Asa P. Potter, president of the Maverick National Bank, was indicted for violation of the banking law. From a conviction (56 Fed. 83, 97), defendant brings error.
By section 5208 of the Revised Statutes, it is provided that 'it shall be unlawful for any officer, clerk, or agent of any national banking association to certify any check drawn upon the association unless the person or company drawing the check has on deposit with the association, at the time such check is certified, an amount of money equal to the amount specified in such check.'
No penalty was imposed on the individual for a violation of this section. But on July 12, 1882 (22 Stat. 166), it was enacted:
etc.
In May, 1892, the defendant was indicted in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts for a violation of these sections. The indictment contained 88 counts. By demurrer and nolle, the last 48 counts were disposed of before the trial, which proceeded upon the first 40. In these 40 counts the unlawful certification of 5 checks was charged; the first 8 counts relating to one check, the next 8 to another, and so on. The case came on for trial in February, 1893, and resulted in a verdict of guilty on 15 counts,—3 in respect to the certification of each check. A motion for a new trial having been overruled, the defendant was sentenced to pay a fine of $1,000, and to be imprisoned in jail for the term of 60 days. To reverse this judgment the defendant has brought this writ of error.
The third count in the indictment, which was one of those upon which the defendant was found guilty, after stating time and venue, and that the defendant was president of the Maverick National Bank, and authorized to lawfully certify checks, charged 'that said Potter, as such president as aforesaid, did then and there, to wit, on said twenty-third day of July, at Boston aforesaid, within said district, and within the jurisdiction of this court, unlawfully, knowingly, and willfully certify a certain check, which said check was then and there drawn upon said association for the amount of twenty-four hundred and fifty dollars by certain persons, to wit, Irving A. Evans, Austin B. Tobey, and William S. Bliss, copartners, then and there doing business under the firm name and style of Irving A. Evans & Company, and which said check was then and there of the tenor following, that is to say:
Irving A. Evans & Co.
—by then and there writing, placing, and putting in and upon and across the face of said check the words and figures following, that is to say:
[meaning said Asa P. Potter, such president as aforesaid].
"_____ _____, Paying Teller.'
'That the said persons, as copartners under the firm name and style as aforesaid, by whom said check was then and there drawn as aforesaid, did not then and there, to wit, at the time said check was so certified by said Potter as aforesaid, have on deposit with said association an amount of money then and there equal to the amount then and there specified in said check, to wit, the amount of twenty-four hundred and fifty dollars in money, as he, the said Potter, then and there well knew,—against the peace and dignity of the said United States, and contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided.'
All the counts upon which the defendant was found guilty, both in respect to this and the other checks, were, so far as any question is involved in this case, substantially like the one quoted.
On the trial the books of the bank were presented, showing that at the times these five checks were certified the account of Evans & Co. was overdrawn in a large sum,—between $100,000 and $200,000. There was testimony tending to show that upon each day that these checks were certified, and prior thereto, Evans & Co. deposited in cash an amount more than sufficient to cover the certifications. Thereupon, as the bill of exceptions shows:
'The defense called the defendant, Mr. Potter, and offered to prove by him an oral agreement between I. A. Evans & Co. and the Maverick National Bank, in the early part of 1891, before June or July, 1891, that Evans & Co. might have a loan by overdraft limited to $200,000, with interest to be charged daily at the rate of six per cent., against which collateral was to be put up, and further to show that the overdrafts existing in June and July, 1891, were under this agreement, and that collateral was actually deposited and kept against it in the hands of the assistant cashier; that this agreement was communicated to the executive officers of the bank, and to a majority of the directors of the bank, who approved it, and this offer was made in connection with the facts that appear in evidence in relation to the books of the bank. Also, the defense offered another conversation between Mr. Potter and Mr. Evans in relation to the matter of certification of checks and deposits connected with this certification, in which Mr. Evans called his attention to the fact that a check had been refused certification, and Mr. Potter told Mr. Evans that it was undoubtedly because he had no deposit there, whereupon Mr. Evans said, 'But I have a loan, as I understand it,' to which Mr. Potter replied substantially: —and that from that time forward the deposits were in, to Mr. Potter's knowledge, from day to day after this conversation with Mr. Evans, in which the defense claims that the parties to the conversation understood distinctly that the daily deposits were to be in for the very purpose of certifying checks.
And in pursuance of this offer the defendant asked the witness certain questions, for the purpose of showing a state of facts, as indicated in the offer, but the testimony was rejected; the court saying, in response to an inquiry of counsel as to whether 'a definite agreement' was ruled out:
Exceptions were duly taken to the action of the court in this respect.
Among other instructions to the jury was the following:
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