State v. Barone
| Decision Date | 20 November 1922 |
| Citation | 118 A. 779 |
| Parties | STATE v. BARONE. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Error to Court of Quarter Sessions, Somerset County.
Joseph Barone was convicted of fraudulently making and delivering a check with knowledge that he had not sufficient funds in the bank with which to pay it and brings error. Reversed.
Argued June term, 1922, before GUMMERE, C. J., and SWAYZE and TRENCHARD, JJ.
William A. Lord, of Orange, for plaintiff in error.
Azariah M. Beekman, Prosecutor of the Pleas, of Somerville, for the State.
The writ of error in this case brings up a conviction had against the defendant in the Somerset quarter sessions upon an indictment which charged that he, oh the 5th day of May, 1921, with intent to defraud, did make and deliver to the order of Halsey's Garage a cheek for $150, bearing date on the said 5th day of May, knowing at the time of the 'making and delivery of the check that he had not sufficient funds in or credit with the bank on which it was drawn with which to pay the cheek upon its presentation. The indictment charges the statutory offense declared in section 1 of the supplement to our Criminal Procedure Act, passed April 10, 1919 (P. L. p. 133) which provides that—
"Any person who, with intent to defraud, shall make or draw, or utter or deliver, any check, draft or order for the payment of money upon any bank or other depositary, knowing at the time of such making, drawing, uttering or delivering, that the maker, or drawer, has not sufficient funds in, or credit with, such bank or other depositary for the payment of such check, draft or order, in full, upon its presentation shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."
The legislative purpose to be gathered from the language of this section of the statute seems to us to be plain, and that is to make criminal the fraudulent giving of a check which is immediately payable; the maker knowing when he delivers it that he has not sufficient funds in the bank upon which it is drawn out of which it can be paid. And this purpose is made clear—if the first section of the supplement leaves it at all in doubt—by section 2 thereof, which declared that, as against the maker of the check, the refusal of payment by the bank shall be prima facie evidence of intent to defraud.
The charge laid in the indictment was that made criminal by the statute, as we construe it, viz. the giving of a check immediately payable, drawn upon a bank in which the maker had not sufficient funds on deposit with which to meet it. The proofs submitted on the part of the state, however, conspicuously failed to support that charge. The situation disclosed by the evidence was that on the 1st day of May, 1921, the Halsey...
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