38 So. 2d 692 | Miss. | 1949
Bryant Broadus was convicted in the court of C.C. Chatham, Justice of the Peace of District No. 2, Jasper County, on a charge of issuing a bad check to one J.I. Fowler, in violation of Section 2153, Code of 1942. Broadus appealed to the Circuit Court where he was again convicted, and he appeals from that judgment and sentence.
The proof shows that, on May 28, 1948, Boardus purchased from Fowler certain pressing shop equipment at an agreed price of $250. It was understood between them that the sale was to be a cash transaction. On the following day, May 29, 1948, an agent of Broadus called for the machinery and Fowler delivered it to the agent, who loaded it on a truck and departed, with Fowler's knowledge and consent, and without paying the purchase price. After the truck had departed, carrying the machinery away, Broadus appeared and delivered to Fowler his check for $250. The interval of time between the delivery of the machinery by Fowler to the agent of Broadus, completed by the departure of the truck and machinery for another county, and the time of the delivery of the check by Broadus to Fowler was thirty minutes or less, but Fowler, himself, admitted on the witness stand *150 that at the time he received the check from Broadus the machinery had been loaded on the truck and the truck had already departed from Rose Hill, Mississippi, where the sale and delivery were made. The check was drawn on the Pascagoula-Moss Point Bank of Moss Point. Fowler deposited the check in the Citizens National Bank of Meridian on or about May 30, 1948, and in due course the check was returned duly protested and marked "insufficient funds."
(Hn 1) At common law, one who obtained goods by means of a check on a bank in which he had no credit could not be prosecuted for cheating, because there was, in such case, no false public token. 22 Am. Jur. p. 474, Sec. 76. In this State we have a statute, Section 2153, Code of 1942, amended by Chapter 403, Laws 1948, directed specifically against the use of worthless checks. For Broadus to be guilty of a violation of the statute, it would be necessary for the proof to show that Fowler then and there delivered the pressing machinery to him in exchange for Broadus' check, and on the faith that the check was presently good. Odom v. Tally,
There is a distinction between the facts in the case at bar and the facts in the case of Moore v. State, Miss.,
The conviction of the defendant in the court below cannot, for the reasons stated, be allowed to stand. The judgment of the lower court will be reversed and the defendant discharged.
Reversed and rendered.