State v. Peeples
| Decision Date | 30 December 1912 |
| Citation | 129 P. 108,71 Wash. 451 |
| Parties | STATE v. PEEPLES. |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, King County; J. T. Ronald Judge.
Drewry M. Peeples was convicted of forgery, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Chas M. Fouts, of Seattle, for appellant.
John F Murphy, Hugh M. Caldwell, and H. B. Butler, all of Seattle, for the State.
The defendant was charged by information with the commission of the crime of forgery in the first degree by knowingly uttering a forged mortgage. He was tried and convicted, and appealed to this court. On that appeal the judgment of conviction was reversed because of an erroneous instruction, to the effect that the fact of forgery is a circumstance from which guilty knowledge is presumed, unless rebutted. State v. Peeples, 65 Wash. 673, 118 P. 906. In due course he was again tried and found guilty as charged. His motion for a new trial was overruled, judgment was pronounced, and sentence imposed. He has again appealed.
The first two assignments of error are general in their nature, being based upon the court's action in denying a new trial and imposing sentence. It is inferentially argued that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict. The constituents of the crime charged and the things necessary to its proof are (1) the spurious character of the instrument, (2) its utterance by the appellant, and (3) his guilty knowledge of its spurious nature. As sustaining the first two of these elements, the evidence was overwhelming. It was shown beyond question that the mortgage was a forgery, and the appellant admitted his participation in its utterance. The evidence conclusively showed that the real owner of the property mortgaged was Martha B. Barnes; that her husband was W. H. T. Barnes; that they resided at Blaine, Whatcom county, Wash., were not in Portland when the spurious mortgage was there executed, and knew nothing of the mortgage till after it was made and the money paid out upon it.
The sole debatable fact upon the evidence was as to the appellant's guilty knowledge of the forgery. Such knowledge may be proven, like any other fact, by circumstantial evidence. The mortgage, the forgery of which is charged, purported to have been executed by Martha B. Barnes and W. H. T. Barnes, husband and wife, before a notary at Portland, Or. The appellant testified that in May, 1910, one D. A. Hatfield, whom he had known for a long time well and favorably, brought to the office of the Washington Abstract Company, where appellant was then employed, a man and two women, none of whom the appellant had ever seen before; that Hatfield introduced the man as Mr. Barnes, one of the women as Mrs. Barnes, his wife, and the other, a young woman, as Miss Barnes, the man's daughter; that they inquired the price of an abstract of title to the property which was afterwards covered by the alleged spurious mortgage; that about a week later he met the man Barnes on the street, and Barnes then introduced to him a Mr. Arlington, whom appellant had never seen before, as Barnes' brother- in-law; that appellant next met the man Barnes about July 20, 1910, in appellant's office in the Melhorn building in Seattle, where appellant was then engaged in the real estate and loan business; that he brought with him the abstract of title to the property in question, and wanted appellant to secure a loan of $5,000 upon the property to clear up delinquent taxes and special assessments against it; that appellant undertook the commission and, during the month of August, opened negotiations to that end with one Hugh A. Goodfellow. The evidence further showed that a loan was finally arranged for, and a note and mortgage prepared in Goodfellow's office, which the appellant took away with him to have executed by Martha B. Barnes, in whose name the property stood of record, and W. H. T. Barnes, her husband; that a few days afterwards the appellant returned with the papers executed, stating that he had sent them to Portland for that purpose; that one J. R. Seaborn, a client of Goodfellow's who furnished the money for the loan, was notified, and the three went to the office of Seaborn's attorney, who had examined the abstract, and who then examined the papers.
The attorney testified that in examining the title he noted that one Mary E. Barnes had held the title in 1893, and he required some proof that she was then unmarried; that the appellant produced an affidavit to the effect that appellant knew Mary E. Barnes, and that she was an unmarried woman when she acquired the property in 1893. The affidavit was sworn to by the appellant before Hugh A. Goodfellow as notary public. The attorney, Goodfellow, and Seaborn all testified that the appellant then stated that he had known the Barnes family for a long time, and that he knew that Miss Barnes had never been married. The failure to produce the original being accounted for, a copy of this affidavit was admitted in evidence over the appellant's objections. The copy was as follows:
The loan was closed, the papers delivered, and something near $3,400 of the proceeds applied in payment of taxes and special assessments against the property. Of the balance, $936.13 was turned over to the appellant by Goodfellow's check, payable to the order of Martha B. Barnes, and about $500 was held back pending the clearing up of an apparent judgment lien upon the property. This occurred about September 3, 1910. Finally, the parties being satisfied that the judgment was not a lien upon the property, Goodfellow gave the appellant his check, payable to the order of Martha B. Barnes, for $432.01, dated September 12, 1910; that being the balance of the loan after deducting $250 as Goodfellow's commission. The appellant testified that he sent each of these checks to Barnes at Portland as soon as received; that about September 6th the man Arlington appeared at his office with the first check and a letter from Barnes, asking the appellant to aid Arlington in cashing the check, which he did, retaining from the proceeds his own commission of $100, and about $35, the cost of the abstract, turning the balance over to Arlington; that about September 13th or 14th a young man, whom appellant had never seen before or since, appeared at appellant's office with the other check and a letter from Barnes, introducing him as Mr. Clark, a nephew of Barnes, and asking the appellant to aid the young man in cashing the check, which he did, turning the money over to the man Clark. On cross-examination the appellant admitted that he went to Portland on September 7th on other business, and while there saw and talked with Hatfield. It also appeared that about the time of these transactions one W. M. Whitney, an attorney, was investigating another transaction in which Hatfield and Arlington were implicated, and with which the appellant had some connection. The appellant testified that Whitney called upon him, and he had furnished Whitney the name and address of Hatfield. Whitney testified that on September 7th or 8th he called on the appellant to secure information as to the two men, and that the appellant said that he did not know Arlington at all, and at first said that he did not know who Hatfield was, but finally said maybe he did know him, and that he would try to find out where he was and would notify Whitney, but that he never did in fact furnish Hatfield's address.
The appellant also testified that, pending the closing of the loan, he received several letters from Barnes from Portland one of which he introduced in evidence. C. S. Harley, a banker, who qualified as a handwriting expert, compared this letter with another paper in Hatfield's handwriting, and testified that in his opinion both pasers had been written by the same person. We think there are ample circumstances disclosed by this evidence from which the jury might reasonably find that the appellant had guilty knowledge of the forgery. He testified that he had known Hatfield for a long time, but if Whitney is believed he denied any acquaintance with him, though within a day or two of that time he had seen and talked with him in Portland. He testified that he had never seen any of the spurious Barnes family prior to May, 1910, but made an affidavit, in order to secure the loan, that he knew that Mary E. Barnes was an unmarried woman in 1893. He produced a letter purporting to come from Barnes in Portland at a time when the evidence shows Hatfield was in Portland, and this letter was pronounced by the expert as in Hatfield's handwriting. He admitted that throughout this period he was in correspondence with Hatfield also, though at that time denying his acquaintance. Without further particularizing, we are satisfied that no...
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State v. Case
...be tolerated, prosecuting officers will be permitted a reasonable latitude in argumentative deduction from the evidence. State v. Peeples, 1912, 71 Wash. 451, 129 P. 108; State v. Evans, 1927, 145 Wash. 4, 258 P. 845; State v. Buttry, supra; State v. Brown, Was this statement beyond the bou......
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State v. Fullen
... ... We have held that, while intemperate assertions of opinion not based upon evidence will not be tolerated, prosecuting officers will be permitted a reasonable latitude in argumentative deduction from the evidence. State ... Page 389 ... v. Peeples, 71 Wash. 451, 129 P. 108. In State v. Evans, 145 Wash. 4, 258 P. 845, we held it not to be misconduct for the prosecuting attorney to refer to the defendant as a 'red-handed murderer,' saying that it was a conclusion which could be legitimately drawn from the evidence. In State v. Buttry, 199 ... ...
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State v. Collins
...379, 213 P.2d 305; State v. Buttry, 1939, 199 Wash. 228, 90 P.2d 1026; State v. Evans, 1927, 145 Wash. 4, 258 P. 845; State v. Peeples, 1912, 71 Wash. 451, 129 P. 108. 6 and 7. Re misconduct of the prosecuting attorney in asking that the courtroom be locked during his closing argument, and ......
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State v. Buttry, 27397.
... ... any evidence, will never be tolerated, it is none the less in ... the interest of a sound public policy that prosecuting ... officers be permitted a reasonable latitude in argumentative ... deduction from the evidence. * * *' State v ... Peeples, 71 Wash. 451, 129 P. 108, 111, quoted with ... approval in State v. Evans, supra ... It is ... said, in a recent opinion, 1936, in the case of Sullivan ... v. State, 47 Ariz. 224, 55 P.2d 312, 317: [199 Wash ... 251] '* * * The best rule for determining ... ...