State v. Adams

• Decision Date: 15 December 1883
• Docket Number: 11,202
• Citation: 92 Ind. 116
• Parties: The State v. Adams
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

92 Ind. 116

The State v. Adams

No. 11,202

Supreme Court of Indiana

December 15, 1883

From the Huntington Circuit Court.

The judgment is reversed, with costs, and the cause remanded for further proceedings.

F. T Hord, Attorney General, and C. W. Watkins, Prosecuting Attorney, for the State.

OPINION

Niblack J.

This was a prosecution under section 2204, R. S. 1881, for selling a promissory note in Huntington county in this State, knowing one of the signatures to have been obtained by false pretences.

The indictment charged that "Joseph J. Adams, late, etc the 12th day of June, 1882, did then unlawfully, feloniously designedly, and with intent to defraud one Perry Brinnaman of his goods, chattels, money and property, obtain the signature of the said Perry Brinnaman to a certain written instrument, to wit, a promissory note, payable to the Citizens Bank of Huntington, for $ 550, which promissory note was in the words and figures, as follows: * *

"Huntington, Indiana, June 12th, 1882.

"Ninety days after date we jointly and severally promise to pay to the order of Citizens Bank, at Citizens Bank, Huntington, Indiana, $ 550, with interest at the rate of eight per cent. per annum after maturity and attorneys' fees; value received, without any relief whatever from valuation or appraisement laws.

"Joseph J. Adams.

"Perry X Brinnaman, his mark.

By then and there unlawfully, feloniously, knowingly, falsely and designedly pretending and representing to him, the said Perry Brinnaman, that the said paper, which was a promissory note, was only an indemnifying bond, which he was desirous of giving to the First National Bank of Huntington, Huntington, Indiana, to secure it, the First National Bank of Huntington, whole against costs and attorneys' fees in all it might do in bringing and prosecuting a suit in his name for his, Adams' benefit, against one William A. Goudy and others, in the Huntington Circuit Court, and such bond was for no other purpose, and he, the said Perry Brinnaman, then and there being a person who could not read writing, and said Joseph J. Adams was a neighbor, and for many years had been an intimate friend of him, the said Brinnaman, and a person on whom the said Brinnaman often relied to read and explain papers in writing to him, the said Brinnaman, and then and there believing and relying in the false representation so made, and being deceived thereby, was, by reason of such representation and pretences, induced to sign said note, and upon no other consideration whatever, and that he, the said Adams, did then and there obtain and receive the said Perry Brinnaman's signature as aforesaid, feloniously and designedly, by means of said false representation and pretences, with intent to cheat him, the said Brinnaman, all of which representations and pretences were false, then and there, as he, the said Joseph J. Adams, at the time he so falsely pretended, then and there well knew."

"And the grand jurors, on oath, say that the said Joseph J. Adams at said county and State aforesaid, on said 12th day of June, 1882, did then and there...