Wilson v. State
| Decision Date | 20 March 1905 |
| Citation | 85 Miss. 687,38 So. 46 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | KING WILSON v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI |
FROM the circuit court of, second district, Coahoma county, HON SAMUEL C. COOK, Judge.
Wilson the appellant, was indicted, tried, and convicted of an attempt to commit forgery, and appealed to the supreme court. The opinion of the court fully states the facts of the case.
Reversed and remanded.
J. A Glover, for appellant.
Forgery is defined as Bouvier's Law Dictionary.
The rule of law as to the validity of an instrument is the same in criminal as in civil matters, and the same rules of construction prevail in ascertaining the legal import of the instrument charged to be forged in a prosecution for forgery as would prevail in a civil action on the instrument. Bland v. People, 4 Ill., 364.
The appellant here is not guilty of forgery, for several reasons. First--Because the alteration made in the draft of check was not material. In all banking institutions where there is a variation between the writing or figures in a check or draft, the writing prevails; and if a check be written out, having no marginal figures indicating the amount, it is acknowledged by the rule of the commercial law and of banks that it should be paid. Therefore the figures are immaterial. The supreme court of Louisiana decided a case almost identical in its facts with the present one, and decided it in the way in which we contend this case should be decided. State v. Means, 18 South. Rep., 514 (S.C., 47 La. Ann., 1535). See also Bailey v. State, 1 Mass., 602; State v. Stevens, 1 Mass., 202; State v. Wilson, 68 Mass. 70; Cox v. State, 66 Miss. 14; Griffin v. Furry, 30 Ill. 251; Galloway v. People, 17 Wend. (N. Y.), 540; Rembert v. State (Ala.), 25 Am. St. Rep., 639.
Can the defendant be convicted of an attempt to commit forgery? Bouvier, in his Law Dictionary, defines an attempt to commit a crime as "an endeavor to accomplish a crime carried beyond mere preparation, but falling short of the execution of the ultimate design of any part of it." And it is further said by the same author that to constitute an attempt there must be an intention to commit some act which would be indictable if committed. Bishop on Criminal Law says that to constitute the crime of an attempt the thing done would be the crime itself if carried to completion. Of course if what the appellant did was innocuous and he could not be convicted of forgery, he cannot be held liable for an attempt to forge, since he accomplished everything he intended to accomplish, and there was no proof of any other intention or purpose than that of writing the figure "1" between "$" and "2.50."
William Williams, attorney-general, for appellee.
Counsel for appellant seems to rely upon the proposition that the figures on the face of the check are immaterial, and since appellant did not change the writing in the face of the check, he is not guilty as charged. If appellant had been convicted of forgery, this proposition might be sustained, but as he was convicted of an attempt at forgery, we submit that the position of counsel for appellant is not tenable. Appellant certainly attempted to change the check so as to receive $ 12.50 instead of $ 2.50, for which the check was written.
It is true that there must be an attempt to commit a crime and an act toward its consummation before one can be punished under the laws of this state. Under the above statement of facts an act was done with the intent to defraud and cheat. Said act was done with a criminal intent, and is therefore a crime made punishable by law. This proposition was settled by this court in Cunningham's Case, 49 Miss. 685; 1 Bish. New Criminal Law, sec. 437.
Argued orally by J. A. Glover, for appellant, and by William Williams, attorney-general, for appellee.
Wilson was convicted of an attempt to commit forgery, the court below properly charging the jury that it could not convict of the crime itself. The instrument of which attempt to commit forgery is predicated is a draft for "two and 50-100 dollars," as written out in the body of it, having in the upper right-hand corner the figures "$ 2.50-100," as is customary in checks, drafts, and notes and having plainly printed and stamped on the face of the instrument the words "Ten Dollars or Less." Wilson, with a pen, put the figure "1" before the figure "2" in the upper right-hand corner, making these immaterial figures appear "$ 12.50" instead of "$ 2.50," and undertook to negotiate it as $ 12.50. This was not forgery, because it was an immaterial part of the paper, and because it could not possibly have injured anybody. In order to constitute the crime, there must be not...
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TABLE OF CASES
...145 (Wis. 1986), 103, 104 Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927 (1995), 237 Wilson v. People, 87 P.2d 5 (Colo. 1939), 448 Wilson v. State, 38 So. 46 (Miss. 1904), 381 Wilson v. State, 53 Ga. 205 (1874), 359 Wilson v. State, 7 A.3d 197 (Md. 2010), 218, 219 Wilson, People v., 487 N.W.2d 822 (Mich.......