State v. De Lay
| Decision Date | 14 November 1887 |
| Citation | 5 S.W. 607,93 Mo. 98 |
| Parties | STATE v. DE LAY. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Rev. St. Mo. 1879, § 3126, provides that technical words and phrases having a peculiar and appropriate meaning in law shall be understood according to their technical import. Defendant was charged in an indictment with having obtained signatures of certain parties to a promissory note, stating it was to be used as a joke, but that defendant did use it to obtain money. The indictment charged this obtaining the signatures as a false pretense, and fraudulent representation. Held, that the defendant was guilty of gross breach of confidence, but not of a criminal false pretense in the meaning of the statute.
2. SAME — INDICTMENT MUST FALSIFY PRETENSES.
An indictment for obtaining money under false pretenses is faulty if it omit by special and distinct averment to falsify the pretenses charged.
Error to circuit court, Scott county; JOHN D. FOSTER, Judge.
The Attorney General, for the State. Marshall Arnold, for defendant in error.
The indictment in this case, drawn upon section 1335, Rev. St., omitting the formal part, is as follows: "That Charles S. De Lay on the second day of January, 1885, at the county of Scott, and state of Missouri, feloniously and designedly, with intent to cheat and defraud one B. F. Shields, Wm. A. Wetteroth, George P. Wetteroth, Francis Amrhien, Jas. W. Trimble, E. A. Randolph, Nick Darmenmuller, J. F. Ashley, J. L. Hale, G. W. Finley, George Wetteroth, Andrew Schoen and M. Arnold, did falsely pretend to the said B. F. Shields, Francis Amrhien, E. A. Randolph, J. F. Ashley and J. L. Hale, Wm. A. Wetteroth, and Nick Darmenmuller that he, the said Charles S. De Lay was making a sham promissory note for the purpose of playing a joke upon certain citizens of the town of New Hamburg, in said county; he, the said Charles S. De Lay, did then and there falsely and fraudulently represent to the said B. F. Shields, Wm. A. Wetteroth, George P. Wetteroth, Francis Amrhien, Jas. W. Trimble, N. A. Randolph, Nick Darmenmuller, J. F. Ashley, J. L. Hale, and G. W. Finley that certain people of the town of New Hamburg, aforesaid, had said that the town of Oran, in said county, could not fill a note for one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and that he, the said Charles S. De Lay, wanted to show them that they could fill out such a note; that he desired them to sign said note, in jest, and not for the purpose of obtaining any money upon it; that the execution of such note was only a jest and a hoax, for the purpose of pastime and amusement; that by said false and fraudulent respresentations and pretenses the said Charles S. De Lay obtained the signatures of the parties aforesaid to a certain promissory note of the purport following, that is to say:
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...Pickett, 174 Mo. 663, 74 S. W. 844; State v. Martin, 226 Mo. 538, 126 S. W. 442); (h) that the pretenses so made were false (State v. De Lay, 93 Mo. 98, 5 S. W. 607; State v. Peacock, 31 Mo. 413); and (1) that defendant knew when he made them that such pretenses were false and untrue (State......