State v. Young

• Decision Date: 14 November 1911
• Citation: 140 S.W. 873,237 Mo. 170
• Parties: STATE v. YOUNG.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

140 S.W. 873

237 Mo. 170

STATE v. YOUNG.

Supreme Court of Missouri. Division No. 2.

November 14, 1911.

1. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 753) — TRIAL — DIRECTION OF VERDICT.

A person being presumed to be innocent of a crime charged against him, where there is no substantial evidence of his guilt, the court, on request, should direct a verdict of not guilty.

2. FORGERY (§ 34) — MATTERS TO BE PROVED — NATURE AND ELEMENTS OF CRIME.

Where an indictment charges a person with the felony of knowingly having in his possession a forged instrument, with intent to defraud by uttering the same as true, it is of the essence of the charge that the instrument described as being in the possession of the defendant was a forgery, and essential to a conviction thereunder that evidence be given of that fact.

3. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 535) — EVIDENCE — SUFFICIENCY — CONFESSION OUT OF COURT.

Evidence of an extrajudicial confession of a crime by the accused is insufficient to support a conviction thereon, where there is no other and independent proof of the corpus delicti.

4. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 535) — EVIDENCE — SUFFICIENCY.

In a prosecution for knowingly having in possession a forged deed, with intent to utter, evidence held insufficient to show that any forgery was in fact committed, so as to support an extrajudicial confession.

5. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 560) — EVIDENCE — SUFFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE.

A charge of crime cannot be sustained by evidence merely, which arouses a strong suspicion of criminal conduct on the part of those participating in the transaction, but must be proved by substantial evidence tending to prove guilt and meeting the requirements of the law.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Dent County; L. B. Woodside, Judge.

Elbert Young was convicted of having in his possession a forged deed with intent to defraud by uttering, and he appeals. Reversed, and defendant discharged.

J. J. Cope and G. C. Dalton (Bland, Crites & Murphy, of counsel), for appellant. E. W. Major, Atty. Gen., and Jno. M. Dawson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

KENNISH, P. J.

At the November term, 1910, of the circuit court of Dent county, the defendant was convicted of the offense of having in his possession a forged deed, with intent to defraud by uttering the same as true, in violation of the provisions of section 4654, Revised Statutes of 1909. His punishment was assessed at 10 months' imprisonment in the county jail, and he appealed to this court.

The indictment upon which defendant was prosecuted contained two counts. The first charged him with having forged a deed, purporting to have been executed by one Richard M. Boyle, conveying to him (defendant) 1,920 acres of land in Dent county, Mo. The second count charged him with having possession of said deed with intent to defraud by uttering said deed as true. The case was submitted to the jury on the second count alone and a verdict of guilty was returned on that count.

The evidence for the state tended to show the following facts: Richard M. Boyle was the record owner of the land in question having acquired title thereto by warranty deeds in 1872. In December, 1906, the defendant filed in the office of the recorder of deeds of Dent county a warranty deed, purporting to convey the said lands to the defendant. This deed purported to have been executed by Richard M. Boyle of Pittsburgh, Pa., and to have been acknowledged before Pearl Abernathy, a notary public of St. Clair county, Ill., with an office at East St. Louis. At the trial Abernathy testified that he did not take or certify the purported acknowledgment and that there was no other notary public in his county of the same name. A day or two before the deed was filed for record, the defendant was in the office of the recorder of deeds, and asked the deputy recorder if he was up with his work, and was informed by the deputy that he was not. A day or two later he asked the same question and was told that the deputy was up with his work. He then filed the deed for record, remained in the recorder's office while it was being recorded, assisted the deputy in comparing the deed with the record thereof, and received the deed back from the deputy. After the deed was recorded defendant and his wife conveyed a part of the land in question to other parties. Mrs. Bertha Jackson testified that she was employed as defendant's stenographer during a part of the year 1907. That in April or May of that year the defendant stated to her that he had cleared five thousand dollars on the Boyle land, and "That A. B. King and Ike Epstein had put him onto this land and he said that there was a lot of crooked work done in it and the deed needed doctoring and he doctored it and he said, `Oh, well, in other words I forged the deed, but there is nobody in Salem smart enough to catch me at it,' and he said, also, in that conversation that he knew a man that had all kinds of seals, and that he could get a deed to any piece of land in Dent county that he wanted." Outside of this testimony of Mrs. Jackson there was no evidence introduced tending to show that the deed was a forgery. It was shown that the city directories of the city of Pittsburgh, Pa., published between 1872 and 1910, did not contain the name of Richard M. Boyle. The deeds to Boyle dated in 1872 referred to him as being of Alleghany, Pa., while the deed from Boyle to defendant referred to him as Richard M. Boyle of Pittsburgh, Pa. At the close of the state's evidence the defendant asked an instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence, which was refused.

The testimony of the defendant was, in substance, as follows: Defendant received the deed in East St. Louis, from a man who claimed to be Richard M. Boyle, paid him $100 therefor, had the deed recorded in Dent county under the circumstances stated by the deputy recorder, and afterwards sold and conveyed part of the land to other parties. That part of the land conveyed by defendant to other parties was sold through an agent, and defendant delivered his deed from Boyle to this agent to be delivered to the purchasers of the land from defendant along with the deed from defendant. The negotiations for the purchase of the land by def...