State v. Lattimore
| Citation | 158 S.E. 741 |
| Decision Date | 27 May 1931 |
| Docket Number | No. 504.,504. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina |
| Parties | STATE. v. LATTIMORE. |
Pub. Laws 1927, c. 47, § 16, Code 1927, § 224 (e), provides that officer of bank, who makes or permits the making of a false statement or certificates, as to a deposit, trust fund, or contract, or makes or permits to be made a false entry in a book, report, statement, or record of such bank, or conceals or permits to be concealed the true and correct entries of said bank, is guilty of a felony.
Appeal from Superior Court, Cleveland County; Clement, Judge.
J. J. Lattimore was convicted of making false entries on the books of a bank in which he was an officer, and he appeals.
No error.
The defendant was prosecuted on an indictment containing two counts, each of which charged him with making false entries on the books of the Cleveland Bank & Trust Company, in which he was an officer, in breach of section 224 (e) of the N. C. Code of 1927, Pub. Laws 1927, c. 47, § 16.
The jury returned a general verdict: "Guilty thereof in manner and form as charged in the bill of indictment." From the judgment pronounced, the defendant appealed and assigned error.
Clyde R. Hoey and B. T. Falls, both of Shelby, for appellant.
Dennis G. Brummitt, Atty. Gen., and Frank Nash, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
William Lineberger testified that he was president of the Cleveland Bank & Trust Company from its organization in 1920 to its merger on February 24, 1930, with the Union Trust Company, and that during this period the defendant was the secretary and treasurer of the Cleveland Bank & Trust Company and the custodian of its records. Near the beginning of his testimony the witness inadvertently referred to an irrelevant account, and, upon discovering it, corrected the error. The court struck out this testimony and instructed the jury to disregard the questions and the answers. Necessarily the defendant's first exception, which was taken to one of these questions, was thereby eliminated; The question to which the second exception related was not answered; and the matters to which the third, fourth, and fifth were addressed were within the knowledge or subject to the inspection of the witness and were therefore competent. The sixth exception may be dismissed with the remark that the witness said he knew nothing of the pencil marks mentioned in the question to which the defendant had objected. The seventh and eighth are obviously without merit and call for no discussion.
The exception on which the defendant chiefly relies were taken to the instructions given the jury. After saying that it was immaterial whether or not the defendant actually received the money because he was not prosecuted for abstracting it, the judge gave the following instruction, to which the ninth and tenth exceptions have reference:
The act upon which the defendant was indicted (Pub. Laws 1927, c. 47, § 16, is a moditi-cation of the statute enacted by the General Assembly at the session of 1921. Pub. Laws 1921, c. 4, § 83. The act of 1921 provided for the conviction of an officer, employee, agent, or director of a bank upon his doing the acts therein denounced with intent to defraud or injure the bank or another person or corporation, or to deceive an officer of the bank or an agent appointed to examine the affairs of the bank, or to conceal its true financial condition.
The averments in the indictment are broad enough to include these provisions; but the Act of 1927, chapter 47, § 16, struck out section 83, chapter 4, of the Public...
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State v. Hales, 217
...the language of the statute in view of its manifest purpose and design. State v. Correll, 232 N.C. 696, 62 S.E.2d 82; State v. Lattimore, 201 N.C. 32, 158 S.E. 741; Hunter v. State of Tennessee, 158 Tenn. 63, 12 S.W.2d 361, 61 A.L.R. 1148; Wharton's ibid, Section 17; 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law ......
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State v. Haskins
...is expressly forbidden by statute may constitute an offense in itself without regard to the question of intent." State v. Lattimore, 201 N.C. 32, 34, 158 S.E. 741, 742 (1931). "The Legislature, unless it is limited by constitutional provisions imposed by the State and Federal Constitutions,......
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State v. Curie
...to be determined from the language of the statute in view of its manifest purpose and design. (Citations.)' In State v. Lattimore, 201 N.C. 32, 158 S.E. 741 (1931), the court said: 'It is true that an act may become criminal only by reason of the intent with which it is done, but the perfor......
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State v. Correll
...the offense itself and we are of the opinion, and so hold, that the instruction of His Honor to the jury was proper. State v. Lattimore, 201 N.C. 32, 158 S.E. 741; State v. Perley, 173 N.C. 783, 92 S.E. 504, and cases The judgment of the court below is affirmed. Affirmed. ...