78 So. 2d 580 | Miss. | 1955
This is an appeal by Steve Dunson from a conviction of forgery and a sentence of seven years in the state penitentiary.
The indictment was drawn under Section 2173, Code of 1942, the applicable part of which is: “Every person who, with the intent to injure or defraud, shall falsely make, alter, forge, or counterfeit any instrument or writing * * * being or purporting to be the act of another, by which any pecuniary demand or obligation shall be or purport to be created, increased, discharged, or diminished, or by which any right or property whatever shall be or purport to be transferred, conveyed, discharged, diminished, or in any manner affected, by which false making, forging, altering or counterfeiting any person may be affected, bound, or in any way injured in his person or property, shall be guilty of forgery.”
Omitting the legal phraseology, the indictment, in effect, charged that Steve Dunson was the truck driver of Greenwood Grocery Company and delivered by truck the
In other words the indictment alleged extrinsic facts to show that the alteration of the writing increased the demand thereof from four to eight sacks of rye. It was pointed out in Cohran v. State,.........Miss.........., 70 So. 2d 46, in a construction of Section 2172, Code of 1942, that the allegation of such extrinsic facts is necessary.
In State v. Ellis, 161 Miss. 361, 137 So. 102, this Court recognized that the three essential elements necessary to constitute the crime of forgery are: “ (1) there must be a false making or other alteration of some instrument in writing; (2) there must be a fraudulent intent; and (3) the instrument must be apparently capable of effecting a fraud.” According to the allegations of the indictment, the writing here involved was capable of effecting a fraud, and was altered with a fraudulent intent.
Consequently the appellant’s demurrer to the indictment, based on the contention that the writing in question was not susceptible of forgery, was properly overruled.
No reversible error appears in the record, and the case is therefore affirmed.
Affirmed.