State v. Carter

• Decision Date: 04 October 1900
• Citation: 83 N.W. 715,112 Iowa 15
• Parties: STATE v. CARTER.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

112 Iowa 15

83 N.W. 715

STATE

v.CARTER.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 4, 1900.

Appeal from district court, Warren county; James D. Gamble, Judge.

Defendant was indicted, tried, and convicted of the crime of obtaining the signature to an instrument by false and fraudulent representations, and from the sentence imposed appeals. Reversed.Bowen & Brockett, for appellant.

Milton Remley, Atty. Gen., for the State.

DEEMER, J.

The state claims that defendant procured from one J. L. Miller a check for $35, drawn on the Indianola Bank, by falsely and fraudulently representing that he (defendant) had been to St. Charles, Iowa, and had bought a team of one Clanton; that he had just learned that the team was mortgaged, and that the mortgage must be immediately redeemed; that he had not sufficient money with which to make redemption; and that without the sum of $35 he would lose the property purchased or the amount paid thereon.

The first point made by appellant is that the indictment is not sufficient, because the check is not copied or set out at length therein. The indictment charges that defendant obtained Miller's signature to a bank check for the sum of $35, and concludes, “a more specific description of said check being unknown to this grand jury.” Ordinarily, this would be a sufficient excuse for not setting forth the instrument in hæc verba, even if an exact copy was required. But it is said that the county attorney had access to the check at and prior to the time he drew the indictment, and that this fact is fatal. Conceding, for the purposes of the case, that the allegations of want of knowledge of the description of an instrument referred to in an indictment may be contradicted, yet we do not think it necessary to set forth a copy of the check. Such a description must be given, however, as will suffice to identify it with accuracy and certainty when offered in evidence. Com. v. Coe, 115 Mass. 481. The indictment,as we have seen, charges that defendant obtained the signature of J. L. Miller to a written instrument commonly called a “bank check,” the false making of which would be punished as forgery, “for the sum of $35,” and the “said J. L. Miller did then and there draw and sign said bank check, * * * and deliver the same to said S. E. Carter.” This, to our minds, is a sufficient description of the instrument. Bonnell v. State, 64 Ind. 498, relied on by appellant's counsel, differs from the instant case in this: that in the Bonnell Case the date of the check was not given, nor did it appear who made or executed the same. Com. v. Brettun, 100 Mass. 206, supports our conclusions.

Again, it is said the indictment does not charge that Miller relied on the alleged false representations. It charges that Miller believed the same were true, and that he would not have signed the check, nor delivered it to defendant, had it not been for the representations so falsely and fraudulently made. This was sufficient. State v. McConkey, 49 Iowa, 499;People v. Jacobs, 35 Mich. 36.

Again, it is said that the representations are charged in the alternative, and do not relate to any material past or present fact. Neither of these objections is tenable. The indictment purports to give the statements and representations made by defendant, and if it be conceded that some of these were in the alternative, and were so stated, it does not invalidate it. The representations charged were of a past event, and some of them were material, as will hereafter appear.

Second. The corpus delicti was sufficiently proven. The statements and representations charged were established, their falsity appears, and it is also shown that Miller relied thereon, and was induced thereby to sign and deliver the check.

Third. The state offered evidence to show that defendant made somewhat similar representations to one M. W. Miller, and procured $25 from him by reason thereof, which he has never repaid. In State v. Lewis, 96 Iowa, 298, 65 N. W. 295, we quoted with approval from 7 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 780, as follows: “It is now generally held that, for the purpose of proving the intent, evidence of similar pretenses, made about the time and in the same neighborhood, to other persons, of the pretenses alleged in the indictment, may be introduced.” The representations made to M. W. Miller were sufficiently connected in point of time to be admissible under this rule, and, had it been shown that they were false, there would have been no error in receiving them in evidence. But there was no proof whatever that they were false, and defendant's motion to exclude should have been sustained. The attorney general's contention that objection should have been made to the questions that elicited the evidence, and that...