Dеfendant was tried on 18 counts of forgery in the first degree and, after 8 counts were dismissed on motion of the prosecution, he was convicted on 10 counts of the offense. Appeal is brought from the denial of defendant’s motion for a new trial and from the judgment of the court entered upon the jury’s verdict. Held:
1. The evidence was sufficient to authorize the jury’s verdict. One of the dеfendant’s two accomplices, a fifteen-year-old youth, testified to the conspiratorial scheme orchestrated by defendant. Utilizing blank checks, the defendant would prepare what appeared to be payroll checks with his typewriter and Paymaster checkwriter. The checks were signed by defendant using the fictitious name of Lee H. Langdale, Jr., and were made payable to the names appearing on lost or stolen social security cards which defendant possessed. Defendant would drive his juvenile accomplices to a business after bank hours and, while he waited in the car, the youths would cash the check (after purchasing an item designated by defendant) using the social security cards for identification. The accomplice identified each of the ten checks (corresponding to the ten counts of which defendant was convicted) and testified to the circumstances surrounding the making and uttering of each instrument. This witness testified that each of the *227 checks was prepared by defendant.
The accomplice’s testimony was sufficiently corroborated by other evidence appearing in the record. Expert testimony established that the same person signed each of the checks and that this person’s signature was different from that used to endorse the instruments. The typewriter аnd Paymaster, identified by the Chief Document Examiner for the State Crime Laboratory as the machines used to prepare each of the checks, were found in defendant’s car. In аddition, defendant admitted that the typewriter was his and that the checkwriter "could be mine.”
Contrary to defendant’s contention, the record reveals a sufficient degree of corrоboration connecting the defendant with the crime. " 'The sufficiency of the corroboration of the testimony of the accomplice to produce [defendant’s] conviсtion ... is peculiarly a matter for the jury to determine. If the verdict is founded on slight evidence of corroboration connecting the defendant with the crime, it can not be said, as a mаtter of law, that the verdict is contrary to the evidence.’ [Cits.]”
Quaid v. State,
Defendant further contends that his conviction of forgery in the first degree is unwarranted since it was not shown that he uttered any of the checks. The evidence did show, however, that each of the checks was uttered by one of defendant’s accomplices pursuant to conspiratorial scheme. "Where individuals enter into a conspiracy to commit a crime, its actual perpetration by one or more of them in pursuance of such conspiracy is in contemplatiоn of law the act of all, and therefore is imputable to all, regardless of their presence or absence at the time it is committed. [Cits.]”
Chambers v. State,
2. Error is enumerated upon the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to sever the numerous counts in the indictment. All of the ten counts on which appellant was convicted were for checks dated November 1 or November 2, 1974, were all prepared by the same typewriter, stamped by the same checkwriting machine, made *228 payable to either R. T. Gillespie or Eugene Ott, and were all signed in the fictitious name of Lee H. Langdale, Jr. Additionally the checks were all foisted off upon merchants in Ware County, Georgia on two days, Friday afternoon November 1 and Saturday, November 2, 1974. Clearly the charges were based upon the same conduct, scheme and plan although involving different victims.
Where the joinder of counts at trial "is based upon the same conduct or on а series of acts connected together or constituting parts of a single scheme or plan, severance 'lies within the sound discretion of the trial judge . . .’ [Cits.]”
Coats v. State,
We cannot agree with defendant’s contention that the instant case is controlled by
Booker v. State,
3. Error is enumerated upon the overruling of defendant’s motion to suрpress the typewriter and Paymaster checkwriter as fruits of an illegal search and
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seizure. These items were located on the back seat of defendant’s car, which was being drivеn by his 15-year-old accomplice. When the police stopped the vehicle for a traffic violation, the youth was unable to produce a driver’s license or proof of vehicle ownership. As the police had probable cause to believe that the automobile was stolen, they had further cause to believe that the typewriter and checkwriter, which were in plain view, were additional fruits of the youth’s crime. Under the totality of circumstances then existing, the officers were justified in either seizing these items as evidence to be used against the juvenile offender or impounding the items for return to their rightful owner. See Code Ann. § 27-301 (d) (Ga. L. 1966, p. 567);
Meneghan v. State,
4. Error is enumerated upon the trial court’s admission, over timely objection, of expert testimony comparing defendant’s handwriting with that appearing on the forged checks. Samples of defendant’s handwriting were excluded from evidence due to the state’s failure to comply with the provisions of Code § 38-709. This Code section provides: "Other writings, proved or acknowledged to be gеnuine, may be admitted in evidence for the purpose of comparison by the jury. Such other new papers, when intended to be introduced, shall be submitted to the opposite pаrty before he announces himself ready for trial.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Despite the court’s exclusion of the handwriting samples, the state’s expert witness was nevertheless permitted to testify that he compared the writing on the excluded papers with the signatures on the forged checks and found "numerous similarities” and "no basic differences” in the handwritings. The witness concluded that "there was reasоn to believe that the [defendant] prepared the [forged] signature.”
While the trial court correctly excluded from evidence the handwriting samples which were not submitted to defensе counsel prior to trial, it erred in
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permitting expert testimony which utilized the same excluded writings as a basis for comparison. A party’s failure to comply with the mandatory provisions of Cоde § 38-709 precludes the
use
of those writings, whether as tangible evidence or as a standard for expert testimony, for the purpose of comparing handwriting.
See Mitchell v. State,
We note additionally that since the excluded writings "were neither proved nor acknowledged to be in the handwriting of the accused, they furnished no standard with which to compare the handwriting of the forged order.”
McCombs v. State,
The trial court’s ruling allowing the expеrt testimony was error and clearly prejudicial to the accused’s defense. Accordingly, the judgment below must be reversed.
5. Defendant’s remaining enumerations of error raise issues which are unlikely to recur upon retrial of this case. We need not therefore consider the merits of these contentions.
Judgment reversed.