State v. Lamb
| Decision Date | 05 March 1930 |
| Docket Number | 160. |
| Parties | STATE v. LAMB. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, Craven County; Midyette, Judge.
R. W Lamb was convicted of forgery, and he appeals.
Reversed.
To constitute "forgery," false writing must purport to be that of another and indicate attempted deception.
The defendant was indicted for forging an indorsement on the back of the following check or voucher which was payable to M. P Mitchell:
The defendant, complying with the statute, moved to dismiss the action as in case of nonsuit. The motion was denied, the defendant was convicted, and from the judgment pronounced he appealed, upon error assigned.
George T. Willis and C. L. Abernethy, both of Newbern, for appellant.
Dennis G. Brummitt, Atty. Gen., and Frank Nash, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The defendant excepted, not only to the denial of his motion to dismiss the action, but to the following instruction given the jury:
The defendant was a member of the school committee of the Fort Barnwell School District, and M. P. Mitchell, a colored woman, taught children of her race in one of the schools. At the end of the school term the county board of education was due her one hundred and forty dollars. The defendant procured a voucher for this sum from the county superintendent of public instruction, took it to the sheriff's office, and indorsed on it the names "M. P. Mitchell, R. W. Lamb." Some one in the office paid him the money and he gave a receipt for it signed ""M. P. Mitchell, by R. W. Lamb." He neglected or refused to pay the money to M. P. Mitchell and she prosecuted him for forgery. The defense was twofold: (1) That she had authorized him to indorse the voucher and collect the money; (2) that if not authorized, his indorsement of the voucher was nothing more than a wrongful assumption of agency, and is wanting in elements essential to the crime of forgery. The first was determined against the defendant; the second presents the law upon which he relies for reversal of the judgment. Following the briefs, the oral argument for the state and for the defendant proceeded on the theory that indorsing the voucher and giving the receipt were in reality one transaction, and that the significance of the indorsement, was, in effect, the same as that of the signature to the receipt, the defendant in each instance pretending to act in the capacity of an authorized agent.
The books abound in definitions of forgery. Blackstone defines it as "the fraudulent making or alteration of a writing to the prejudice of another man's right" (4 Bl. 247); Buller, J., as "the making of a false instrument with intent to deceive" (Rex v. Coogan, 2 East P. C. 853); Blackburn, J., as "the false making of an instrument to be that which it is not; it is not the making of an instrument which purports to be what it really is, but which contains false statements" (In re Windsor, 10 Cox C. C. 118, 123 6 B. & S. 522); Shee, J., as "the making or altering of a document with intent to defraud or prejudice another so as to make it appear to be a document made by another" (10 Cox C. C. 124).
It would be difficult to frame a definition to include all possible cases; but, as a rule, the false writing must purport to be the writing of a party other than the one who makes it and it must indicate an attempted deception of similarity. Annotation, 22 Am. Dec. 321; Hale v State, 120 Ga. 183, 47 S.E. 531; 2 Bishop's Crim. Law, § 572. Forgery is the attempted imitation of another's personal act. Mann v. People, 15 Hun (N. Y.) 155, affirmed in People v. Mann, 75 N.Y. 484, 31 Am. Rep. 483. Hence, signing as the agent of another, without authority, does not constitute forgery. Clark's Crim. Law (2d Ed.) 355. The English courts applied the principle in Rex v. White, 1 Den. C. C. 208, 2 Car. & K. 404, 2 Cox C. C. 210. There a prisoner falsely averring an authority to indorse a bill of exchange for T. Tomlinson, wrote on the back of the bill "Per procuration Thomas Tomlinson, Emanuel White." The bill was thereupon discounted, and the prisoner went off with the money. It was held that the indorsement was not a forgery. 2 Mews' Eng. Case Law Digest 1262. In Rex v. Arscott, 6 Car. & P. 408, the prisoner indorsed a bill of exchange to R. Aickman as follows: "Received for R. Aickman, G. Arscott." As the prisoner apparently received the money for another and signed his own name the court held that he must be acquitted of forgery. In 3 Archbold's Crim. Pr. a...
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State v. Brown
...to be the writing of a party other than the one who makes it and it must indicate an attempted deception of similarity.” State v. Lamb, 198 N.C. 423, 425, 152 S.E. 154, 155 (1930). The State directs our attention to five pieces of evidence that it claims show forgery. The first piece of evi......