90 Ky. 488 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1890
delivered the opinion of the court.
This appeal really presents but one question. The indictment charges that the appellant, Henry Johnson, “did utter and publish as true a certain false, forged and counterfeited order.” It is copied in the
The statute under which the indictment was found provides: “If any person shall forge or counterfeit any deed, will, testament, bond, writing obligatory, bill of exchange, order, promissory note for the payment of money or other thing, or any indorsement or assignment of a bond, writing obligatory, bill of exchange, order or promissory note for the payment of money or other thing, or any acquittance or receipt for money, or property or other thing, with intention to defraud another, or shall knowingly utter or publish as true any such instrument as above described, * * * * shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than ten years.” (Section 5, article 9, chapter 29, General Statutes.)
It is contended, as this statute has the disjunctive “or,” that to utter a forged order is one offense, and to utter a counterfeit order is another; and thgj; as the indictment charges the accused with uttering a. “forged and counterfeited order,” the demurrer should have been sustained. In other words, it is claimed that he is charged with uttering a forged order, and also a counterfeit one. It is also contended, as the statute uses the word “utter or publish” in the disjunctive, that uttering the writing is one offense, and publishing it is another; and as the indictment charges, that the accused “did utter and publish,” therefore,, two offenses are charged.
The appellant could not well have been misled as to the writing he was charged with fabricating, because it was set forth in the indictment.
Judgment affirmed.