176 Ga. 727 | Ga. | 1933
The question propounded by the Court of Appeals must be answered in the affirmative, upon the following authorities: Penal Code (1910) § 231 is as follows: “Whoever, with intent to defraud the State or any person, shall falsely and fraudulently make, forge, alter, or counterfeit, or cause or procure to be falsely and fraudulently made, forged, altered, or counterfeited, or willingly aid or assist in falsely and fraudulently making, forging, altering, or counterfeiting, any . . writing obligatory, bill of exchange, promissory note, order for money or other thing of value, or any indorsement or assignment of said papers, shall be punished by imprisonment and labor in the penitentiary for not less than four years nor longer than ten years.” In Roberts v. State, 92 Ga. 451 (2) (17 S. E. 262), it was held: “On the trial of an indictment for the forgery of a railroad pass, there was no error in charging : ‘If any one should happen to sign or write his name on a piece of paper, and some one should get hold of it and fraudulently write above it a promissory note, it would be a forgery in the letter and spirit of the law/ the charge being correct law, and not improperly used as an illustration in the course of the court’s instructions to the jury.” The report in 92 Ga. does not give any statement of facts, but from the original record of file in the clerk’s office it appears that the indictment charged that Eoberts “did falsely and fraudulently make, forge, and counterfeit a certain pass from Monroe to Atlanta over the Seaboard Air Line — Georgia, Carolina & Northern Division — said pass purporting to be issued to M. B. Prank and wife by John H. Winder, superintendent; but said pass was falsely and fraudulently made and forged by said S. P. Eoberts, and sold to said M. B. Prank and wife, with intent to defraud the Georgia, Carolina & Northern Division of the Seaboard Air-Line.” The evidence in that case tended to show that the pass as to which the forgery was charged was one of a series of passes contained in a pass-book furnished by the railroad company to one of its heads o£ departments, to be issued by him, when he saw proper, to employees of the road; that defendant was not an employee; that this book of passes disappeared, or was stolen, from the possession of the head of the department mentioned, under circumstances indicating that it might have been taken by the defendant; that the passes of which the forgery was charged came from this book, as well as two other passes taken up by a conductor under an order which had been
In 2 Wharton’s Criminal Law, 1102, § 876, it is said: “Forgery to fill in terms other than those authorized. . . When an agent has authority to fill with a particular sum a blank in a paper signed by his principal, it is forgery to fill the blank with a larger sum. This has been held to be the law even in cases where the writer believed that the larger sum was due him. And an unauthorized filling of blanks falls generally under the same rule.” In support of the text Wharton cites Roberts v. State, supra, and the following cases from other jurisdictions: Wilson v. South Park Comrs., 70 Ill. 46; State v. Maxwell, 47 Iowa, 454; People v. Dickie, 62 Hun, 400 (17 N. Y. Supp. 51); Hooper v. State, 30 Tex. App. 412 (28 Am. St. R. 926, 17 S. W. 1066); Becker v. State (Tex. App.), 18 S. W. 550; State v. Kroeger, 47 Mo. 552; State v. Taylor, 117 Mo. 181 (22 S. W. 1103); State v. Flanders, 38 N. H. 324; Comm. v. Pioso, 18 Lanc. L. Rev. 27. In People v. Dickie, supra, is an interesting discussion of the principle here involved. In that case it was held that an employee entrusted by his employers with checks drawn to his order, and signed by them in blank, with authority to fill
The decision in Jackson v. State, 72 Ga. 28, is not controlling. There the controlling point was that there was no change made in the body of the order itself. Here the offense is in writing “three hundred fifty 00/100” in the body of the note without any authority to do so.