State v. Woodward

• Decision Date: 08 May 1900
• Parties: STATE v. WOODWARD.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

56 S.W. 880

156 Mo. 143

STATE v. WOODWARD.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

May 8, 1900.

FALSE PRETENSES — INDICTMENT — SUFFICIENCY.

Under Rev. St. 1889, § 3826, providing that any person who, with intent to cheat and defraud, attempts to obtain from another any valuable by trick or deception or false statements, shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanor, an indictment was sufficient which charged that defendant on a certain day, with intent to defraud, falsely represented that a signature to a certain note was the signature of a certain person, by means of which false pretense he attempted to obtain money, since the intent to defraud and the attempt to obtain the property, which form the constituent elements of the crime, were charged, and the facts were sufficient to inform defendant and the court of the nature of the crime charged.

Appeal from circuit court, Scott county; Henry C. Riley, Judge.

Newt. J. Woodward was indicted for an attempt to cheat and defraud, and from a judgment sustaining a demurrer to the indictment the state appeals. Reversed.

At the October term, 1899, of the circuit court of Scott county, defendant was indicted by the grand jury of said county for an attempt to cheat and defraud the Farmers' Bank of Commerce, of said county, of the sum of $40. The indictment, leaving off the formal parts, is as follows: "The grand jurors for the state of Missouri, duly impaneled, charged, and sworn to inquire within and for the body of Scott county, and state of Missouri, upon their oath present and charge that Newt. J. Woodward on the 24th day of June, A. D. 1899, at the county of Scott and state of Missouri, feloniously and designedly, with the unlawful and felonious intent to cheat and defraud the Farmers' Bank of Commerce, a banking corporation duly organized under the laws of the state of Missouri, did unlawfully, falsely, and feloniously pretend and represent to the said Farmers' Bank of Commerce that the signature `Mrs. E. Woodward,' then and there attached to a certain promissory note, which promissory note was payable to the said bank, in the sum of one hundred dollars, and was to become due ninety days after the date of a loan to be granted by said bank, and which date was to be affixed to said note at the time said loan was made, and which promissory note he, the said Newt. J. Woodward, did then and there present to the said bank, and request of said bank that he, said Newt. J. Woodward, be granted a loan of forty dollars of the money of said bank, instead of the one hundred dollars, was the signature of the stepmother of him, the said Newt. J. Woodward, in accordance with an agreement and promise made by Wm. B. Anderson, president of said bank, to grant a loan of one hundred dollars of the money of the said bank to the said Newt. J. Woodward upon the condition that the stepmother of him, the said Newt. J. Woodward, would sign said promissory note for said sum of one hundred dollars; that said Wm. B. Anderson, as president of the said bank, had...