Twitchell v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 28 October 1848 |
| Parties | TWITCHELL & NORTON <I>v.</I> The COMMONWEALTH. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Darragh, for plaintiff in error.
Magehan, contrà.
Oct. 28. COULTER, J.
The first section of the act of Assembly of 12th April, 1828, enacts that it shall be unlawful to issue or circulate, with intent to create or continue a circulating medium, any bill, note, check, or ticket, for a less sum than ten dollars. The third section, however, enacts that such notes, bills, or tickets shall not be void or of none effect, and provides that the holder, notwithstanding anything contained in that act, may bring suit thereon, and recover the amount thereof, with interest; and the fourth section makes the drawer, acceptor, and every person or body corporate who shall endorse the said bills, checks, or notes, or in any way put their name thereon, liable to the holder for the principal sum expressed thereon, and twenty per cent. interest. Such notes or bills are, therefore, of value to the holder when they are genuine, although those who issue or circulate them with intent to create or continue them as a circulating medium, are liable to a penalty. And it is therefore an injury to any individual to have simulated or counterfeited notes or bills of that description imposed upon him for value received from him.
There can be no question that genuine $3 bills on the Bank of Cincinnati are of value to the holder in this state, and therefore to transfer to him, for value received from him, counterfeited notes of that description, is a fraud and an injury to him. The question in this case is not whether an individual could be indicted for counterfeiting or passing such notes or not, and therefore I say nothing about it. But the question is, whether an indictment will lie against two or more for confederating and conspiring to pass counterfeited and false notes of that description upon an individual or individuals for the purpose of cheating him. The conspiracy to cheat, in such case, is the gist of the offence. All combinations in society to effect an evil purpose are dangerous, and when their object and purpose is to cheat an individual, by whatever means, they are obnoxious to the criminal law. In the case of The Commonwealth v. McKisson, 8 S. & R. 420, it was ruled that, in an indictment for conspiracy to cheat, an overt act need not be set out. The concentrated energy of several combined wills, operating...
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State v. Loser
...(Conn.) 52 Atl. 730;State v. Buchanan, 5 Har. & J. 317, note, 9 Am. Dec. 534; Com. v. Hunt, 4 Metc. (Mass.) 111, 38 Am. Dec. 346; Twitchell v. Com., 9 Pa. 211; State v. Cole, 39 N. J. Law, 324; Reg. v. Orman, 14 Cox, C. C. 381; 1 Hawkins, P. C. 190, c. 72; Bradshaw v. Territory (Wash.) 14 P......
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