Sinclair v. StateSinclair v. State
The appellant, Harold E. Sinclair, was informed against on November 30, 1948, in the Criminal Court of Record of Palm Beach County, Florida, for the crime of forgery. He was duly arraigned and placed upon trial before a jury, which considered the testimony and returned a verdict of guilty. The trial court sentenced the appellant to serve for the offense a period of two years at hard labor in the State Prison. An appeal has been perfected here.
The information was drafted under the provisions of
` Kahn‘s No. 14680 Pahokee, Florida Pay to the order of H.E. Sinclair $700.00 Kahn‘s ** 700 DOL‘S 00 CTS Dollars Bank of Pahokee Kahn‘s Pahokee, Florida Joseph Kahn
“That is to say that on said date the said Harold E. Sinclair did unlawfully and feloniously alter and change said check from One Hundred Dollars to Seven Hundred Dollars after the genuine signature of Joseph Kahn had been secured to said check, contrary to the form of the Statute in such case made and provided, against the peace and dignity of the State of Florida“.
It appears by the record that the appellant did not file a motion to quash the information or point out any of its alleged irregularities or defects prior to arraignment but entered a plea of not guilty and proceeded to trial by obtaining a jury, and through counsel examined or cross-examined the State‘s witnesses adduced by the prosecution; and, during the progress of the trial, objected to the introduction of the alleged forged instruments into evidence. For the first time, after the jury‘s verdict, and in a motion for a new trial counsel contends that the information was fatally defective in that it failed or omitted to allege that the appellant committed forgery “with the intent to defraud“, which is an essential element under
An explanation for the delay on the part of counsel for the appellant in not pointing out the alleged defects in the information until after the jury‘s verdict is not clearly shown. The law frowns upon the policy of remaining silent as to fatally defective informations until after the verdict and then for the first time assert these alleged rights in a motion for a new trial. It was counsel‘s duty under the law to bring to the attention of the trial court the alleged defective information prior to pleading thereto.
Counsel cites many of our decisions prior to the adoption of our Criminal Code, as well as authorities from other jurisdictions, to sustain the contention that the verdict of the jury failed to cure the defect in the information as it was a matter of substance and the trial court was without jurisdiction because of the defective pleading. This contention is answered by Wharton‘s Criminal Law, Vol. (12th ed.) 380-381, par. 292, viz.: “Section 292. Sufficiency of Indictment as Affecting Jurisdiction. — The jurisdiction of the court does not depend upon the sufficiency of the pleading in the case, the indictment, or information. If the law confers power to consider and render judgment, and the court has jurisdiction over the subject-matter and over the person of the accused, nothing further is required. Jurisdiction of the court over the particular matter does not mean simply jurisdiction of the particular case before the court, but jurisdiction over the class of cases to which the case at bar belongs. And where the court has jurisdiction over subject-matter and over the person of the accused, the decision of all other questions by the court is merely the exercise of that jurisdiction“.
It appears by the record that the State of Florida during the progress of the trial adduced into evidence, over objections seasonably made by his counsel, two checks payable to the appellant Sinclair and dated September 30, 1948, and in the sum of $100.00 each. It was the theory of the prosecution
In the case of Coston v. State, 139 Fla. 250, 190 So. 520, the defendant was on trial under an indictment charging murder in the first degree. The prosecution, over objections of counsel, adduced testimony to the affect that the appellant had committed various crimes in the County of Orange separate and wholly independent from the crime of murder then being prosecuted. We held that the testimony was prejudicial and clearly erroneous and reversed the judgment of conviction and awarded a new trial. The principle of law enunciated in the Coston case is not only well established law in Florida but is in line with courts of other jurisdictions, but well established exceptions exist as to the rule as shown by the decisions of this Court in forgery cases. See Langford v. State, 33 Fla. 233, 14 So. 815; Wooldridge v. State, 49 Fla. 137, 38 So. 3, and Pittman v. State, 51 Fla. 94, 41 So. 385, 8 L.R.A., N.S., 509.
We have examined the instructions appearing in the record as given to the jury by the trial court in light of the contentions of counsel. It is our view that the appellant cannot be heard to say on this appeal that the information under which he was convicted in the court below is fatally defective. He filed a plea of not guilty to the information and went to trial on the merits.
We fail to find error in the record.
Affirmed.
ADAMS, C.J., and SEBRING and HOBSON, JJ., concur.