The State v. Hodges

• Decision Date: 17 May 1898
• Citation: 45 S.W. 1093,144 Mo. 50
• Parties: The State v. Hodges, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

45 S.W. 1093

144 Mo. 50

The State v. Hodges, Appellant

Supreme Court of Missouri, Second Division

May 17, 1898

Appeal from Greene County Criminal Court. -- Hon. C. B. McAfee Judge.

Affirmed.

John Schmook, Jr., and Francis M. Wolf for appellant.

(1) Before such check was admissible for any purpose it devolved on the State to show that it was forged. 8 Am. and Eng. Ency of Law, 531; State v. Saunders, 68 Iowa 370; State v. Roberts, 33 Mo.App. 524. (2) Criminal intent -- fraudulent purpose -- is a necessary and essential constituent of the crime charged and must be conclusively established, and evidence tending to show that defendant was incapable of forming an evil design by reason of dementia or insanity, should have been admitted. (3) If defendant had reasonable grounds for believing that she had authority to sign Bauer's name to the check set out in the indictment she was entitled to an acquittal. Parmerlee v. People, 8 Hun. (N. Y.) 623; Montgomery v. State, 12 Tex.App. 323; 8 Am. and Eng. Ency. of Law, 459, 460. (4) If she signed Bauer's name to the check in the honest belief that she had authority to do so this negatives intent to defraud. Commonwealth v. Whitney, Thach. C. C. (Mass.) 588; 8 Am. and Eng. Ency. of Law, note 2, p. 459.

Edward C. Crow, Attorney-General, and Sam B. Jeffries, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

(1) The intent to defraud was properly charged and the instrument purported to be forged, fraudulently uttered or passed is properly described. McClain's Crim. Law, sec. 766; State v. Crouch, 28 Ga. 367. (2) The point raised by defendant that the jury received papers and documents, to wit, checks and reputed orders and checks not authorized by law, and that evidence of defendant having passed other forged instruments about the time of the offense here charged should not have gone to the jury, is without support in law. Such evidence was admissible for the purpose of showing the fraudulent intent in the case now being considered. The evidence discloses that the fraudulent check previously uttered was attempted to be passed by defendant about one week prior to the commission of the offense upon which she was convicted; hence, no exceptions can be taken in that regard. Greenl. on Ev., sec. 53; 2 McClain's Crim. Law, sec. 808; Brown v. State, 26 Ohio St. 181; State v. Shiedley, 23 Ohio St. 142; People v. Coleman, 58 N.Y. 559; State v. Sarony, 95 Mo. 349; State v. Bayne, 88 Mo. 41; State v. Turley, 44 S.W. 267. (3) All of the instructions are not embodied in the bill of exceptions. It is, therefore, a matter of impossibility for this court to pass upon the sufficiency or insufficiency of those set out in the bill.

Burgess, J. Gantt, P. J., and Sherwood, J., concur.

OPINION

Burgess, J.

From a conviction in the criminal court of Greene county of knowingly uttering a forged instrument and the fixing of her punishment at two years imprisonment in the State penitentiary defendant appealed.

At the time of the commission of the alleged offense the defendant lived with her stepfather, Herman Bauer, in the city of Springfield, Missouri. On the last day of February, 1897, she engaged a horse and buggy from the Pickwick Livery and Transfer Company in Springfield, which was delivered to her by one Merrell Skinner, who was at that time in the employ of the livery company. In payment for the hire of the horse and buggy defendant asked a gentleman who was with her to give her a check, which he did. She in turn handed it to Skinner. Skinner asked the gentleman to sign his name to the check, as it had no name on the back of it, but defendant took it and said she would sign it. She then signed Bauer's name to the check in the presence of Skinner. The check purported to be drawn upon the Springfield Savings bank and to be signed by defendant's stepfather, H. R. Bauer. Upon being presented to the bank for payment it was refused. Bauer testified that he did not sign the check and had given no one authority to sign it for him. Other facts connected with the case will be hereafter stated, should it be deemed necessary.

During the trial the State was permitted to introduce in evidence, over the objection and exception of defendant, another check other than the one described in the indictment, which the evidence tended to show was a forgery, and to show that defendant had a few days previous to the last day of February, 1897, in the same city, uttered it, knowing it to be a forgery. It is insisted by defendant that this evidence was improperly admitted, because it tended to show that defendant was guilty of another separate and distinct offense. Such evidence is not permissible for the purpose of proving the commission of other and distinct crimes by the defendant than that for which he is upon trial, but when, as in this case, guilty knowledge is an ingredient of the offense charged, it is admissible for the purpose of showing the intent with which the act was done. State v. Myers, 82 Mo. 558, was a prosecution for obtaining property by means of a trick and fraud, and acts of the defendant similar to the one for which he was being tried, committed on the same day and in the same town, were admitted in evidence against him for the purpose of showing the intent with which the act was done. In State v. Bayne, 88 Mo. 604, it was held that acts of the defendant similar to the one for which he was being tried, committed near the same time and in the same city, were admissible against him for a like purpose. The same rule was announced in State v. Cooper, 85 Mo. 256; State v. Sarony, 95 Mo. 349, 8 S.W. 407; State v. Balch, 136 Mo. 103, 37 S.W. 808, and in State v. Turley, 142 Mo. 403, 44 S.W. 267. This evidence was restricted by the court when admitted, and also by an instruction to the intent of the defendant at the time she was alleged to have uttered the check described in the indictment, and for that purpose it was clearly admissible.

There was no evidence tending to show that defendant had, or that she had reasonable grounds for believing that she had authority to sign Bauer's name to the check described in the indictment. Upon the contrary while he testified that she was authorized to sign his name to...