State v. Fay

• Decision Date: 15 June 1900
• Docket Number: 12,212 - (260)
• Citation: 83 N.W. 158,80 Minn. 251
• Parties: STATE v. MATT FAY
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

83 N.W. 158

80 Minn. 251

STATE v. MATT FAY

Nos. 12,212 - (260)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

June 15, 1900

Defendant was convicted in the district court for Itasca county of forgery in the second degree, whereupon the court Holland, J., at his request certified to the supreme court for its determination the question whether the indictment stated facts sufficient to constitute a public offense. Affirmed.

SYLLABUS

Forgery -- Indictment.

An indictment for uttering as true forged paper, purporting on its face to have been issued by an agent in the name of his principal, which sets out the instrument in haec verba, need not aver the authority of the agent.

C. C. McCarthy, for defendant.

W. B. Douglas, Attorney General, and J. R. Donahue, County Attorney, for the State.

OPINION

START, C.J.

The defendant was indicted, tried, and convicted at the January term, 1900, of the district court in and for the county of Itasca, of the crime of uttering a certain forged instrument. The charging part of the indictment reads as follows:

"The said Matt Fay on the 20th day of June, A.D. 1899, at the village of Deer River, in the county of Itasca and state of Minnesota, did then and there wilfully, wrongfully, unlawfully, and feloniously, with intent to defraud one F. D. Coleman, utter, offer, and dispose of to said F. D. Coleman, as true, a forged instrument in writing, the false making of which is punishable as forgery, in words and figures as follows, to wit:

'June 19th, '99. Deer River, Minn. P. McDonnell, of Duluth, Minn., pay to Matt Fay or order sixty-five dollars and thirty-five cts., for labor at Cedar Camp. P. McDonnell, by John McDonnell.'

[Indorsed on back] Matt Fay. The said Matt Fay then and there well knew the said instrument was a forged instrument, -- contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state of Minnesota."

After sentence the trial judge certified to this court the question whether the indictment states facts sufficient to constitute a public offense.

The objection of defendant to this indictment is: That no facts are alleged which will enable the court to see that if it were genuine it would possess any legal efficacy, because there is nothing alleged to show that John McDonnell was authorized to execute for P. McDonnell, as agent or otherwise, such an instrument as the one set out in the indictment. Therefore the indictment does not charge a public offense.

The case of State v. Wheeler, 19 Minn. 70 (98), is cited and relied upon in support of the proposition. In that case the indictment attempted to charge the defendant with the forging of a grain elevator receipt purporting on its face to be a statement that the elevator company had received a certain number of bushels of wheat on account of the party named therein, or bearer. The instrument did not, on its face,...