61 S.W. 478 | Tex. Crim. App. | 1901
Appellant was convicted of forgery, and his punishment assessed at two years confinement in the penitentiary.
The only question necessary to be considered is the validity of the indictment. The indictment was for forgery, by altering the following receipt: "Received from Lon Black twenty-five dollars, payment on S.P. Tiner note, Oct. 21st, '98. [Signed] Winston
Higginson." The alleged alteration consisted in changing "twenty-five" to "fifty," so as to make the receipt for "fifty dollars." There are no explanatory averments showing how said receipt would affect or discharge any obligation. We are not informed how Lon Black was connected with the S.P. Tiner note. Of course, if Lon Black owed one S.P. Tiner, on a note, more than $25, and Winston Higginson owned the Tiner note, or were Tiner's agents for the collection of the said note, and Black paid them $25 on said note, and received their receipt for the same, and afterwards raised the $25 to $50, in order to use the same as an offset against said note, said instrument would be the subject of forgery; and the proof in this record shows that such were the conditions *586
in regard to said receipt and note, and Lon Black's connection therewith. But it occurs to us that, before all of this evidence could have been gone into, the indictment should have contained allegations or explanatory averments showing how said receipt or written instrument affected or discharged some obligation outside of the receipt itself; and such we understand to be the condition of the authorities on the subject. Cagle v. State,
It is not necessary to consider other questions, but for the refusal of the court to quash the indictment the judgment is reversed, and the prosecution ordered dismissed.
Reversed and dismissed.