On November 1, 1951, the Polk County grand jury returned an indictment against the defendant accusing him of the crime of forgery by signing the name of one Alex Ward to a note to the-Aetna Finance Company. It was also charged that the defendant had been twice convicted of the crime of burglary in Kane and Rock Island Counties, in Illinois. Upon his plеa of not guilty the defendant went to trial and was convicted of the offense charged. In response to- interrogatories the jury found he had been convicted in Illinois as alleged. The trial court thereupon, after overruling motions to dismiss the indictment, for judgment notwithstanding verdict, for new trial and to set aside the special findings, sentenced the defendant to a term of not to exceed twenty-five years in the state penitentiary under the provisions of Code section 747.5. From this judgment the defendant prosecutes his appeal.
Defendant’s assigned errors are eight in number but they are argued in two divisions only since they fall into two major *281 categories and depend upon what his counsel think are the two points upon which the trial court was mistaken in its application of the law. It is not contended there was not sufficient evidence to submit to the jury concerning defendant’s guilt of the offense of forgery charged.
I. The first proposition argued centers around the claimed error of the court in admitting certain evidence of other transactions. It was later stricken out, but defendant urges the evidence was of that type which is so peculiarly prejudicial that, once heard by the jury, no ruling or admonition of the court can remove it from the minds of the jurors or prevent it from influencing their verdict. A motion fоr a mistrial was made and denied.
The items of evidence which brought on this contention show an attempt on the part of the State to prove the defendant tried to secure moneys from other finance companies by similar methods used in his dealings with the Aetna Finance Company. On the 14th of April, 1951, he called at the officе of the latter concern, represented himself to be one Alex Ward, executed a note and wage assignment and received about $100. On the sixteenth of the same month he returned and received an additional loan in the sum of $107, again signing the name of Alex Ward. Whether the second loan was in addition to the first or the first was рaid by the second is not clear and is immaterial. It is the transaction with this company upon which the charge of forgery herein is based.
William H. Dunkin, personal loan manager for the Iowa Guarantee Company, also located in Des Moines, testified, over objection, that on April 19, 1951, the defendant called at the offiсe of his company, representing himself to be Alex Ward, and signed in the latter’s name a note and a wage assignment. No money was advanced to him on these papers.
Don E. Williamson, manager of the Jay Barmish Loan Company, testified that on April 19, 1951, the defendant came to the company’s office, said he was Alex Ward and asked for a loan. So far as the record shows no loan was made him and no papers signed.
After the testimony of these two witnesses, had been admitted, over objection, the court struck it from the record and so *282 advised tbe jury; and at tbe close of all tbe evidence tbe jury was admonished that “in consideration of your verdict you will give no weight or consideration to tbe testimony of tbe two witnesses William H. DunMn and Williamson.” Defendant contends the error first committed was so prejudicial that striking it from tbe record and admonishing tbe jury would not remedy tbe barm done. •
We think tbe matter is largely in tbe discretion of the trial court. State v. Warren,
We think also there is a still more cogent reason why no error was committed at this point, at least against tbe defendant. Error against tbe State appears. In other words, tbe stricken testimony was properly admissible and should have remained in the record. Evidence of other offensеs is ordinarily not admissible, but when malice or intent is involved or other transactions tend to show a general scheme or course of conduct on the part of the accused, an exception to the rule comes into play. In State v. McWilliams,
“The crime of uttering a forged instrument is one of the exceptions to the gеneral rule that the commission of other crimes may not be shown against the accused. It belongs in the class where other like offenses committed by the defendant and connected in point of time or circumstances with the crime charged may be shown, to establish guilty knowledge or intent on his part.”
See also State v. Gibson,
*283 There must ordinarily be some relation in time between the offense charged and the other offenses, or attempted offenses, shown. Such there was here. The forgery at the Aetna Finance Company was on April 16,1951; the attempts at the Iowa Guarantee Company and the Jay Barmish Loan Company were on April 19.
It seems to have been defendant’s thought, as shown by his counsel’s objections, that the Iowa Guarantee and Barmish transactions were not admissible because they were not in fact “other offenses.” It is true there must be a showing that the signing of the name of the purported maker of the instrument was without his authority. State v. Prins,
Nor is there merit to counsel’s contention that the signing of the note and wage assignment at the office of the Iowa Guarantеe Company was not a forgery because it harmed no one; in other words, that defendant’s nefarious purpose having been thwarted by a refusal of the intended victim to go through with the loan, no crime was committed. Our statute on forgery, Code section 718.1, provides “if any person with intent to defraud” etc. It is not necessary that аnyone be actually defrauded; the attempt to defraud, the intention to do so is sufficient. State v. Jamison,
A somewhat different situation is shown in reference to the tеstimony of Don E. Williamson, manager of the Barmish Company. Apparently the matter did not get beyond the negotiation stage, and no papers were prepared or signed. So, the offense of forgery was not committed. But we think the evidence was admissible. It was a transaction tending to show a course of conduct, a general scheme on the part of the defendant, and he cannot take refuge in the fact that his attempt was unsuccessful. It would be a strange rule of law which would hold that while other *284 forgeries might be shown, attempts to commit them could not be. There was no error prejudicial to defendant shown by the matters discussed in this division.
II. Further еrror is predicated upon the complaint there was no sufficient proof of the two convictions of felonies alleged to have been entered against the defendant in Illinois. It is the contention that there was insufficient evidence of defendant’s identity with the person so convicted. The State sought to provе this part of its case by introducing certified transcripts of the records in Kane and Rock Island Counties, Illinois, and by the testimony of one Lester Acord, a guard at the Illinois State Penitentiary at Stateville for more than thirty-two years.
The authenticated transcript from Kane County shows that on September 10,1928, one William Bolds, having been convicted by a jury of the offense of burglary, was sentenced to confinement in the Illinois State Penitentiary. The transcript from Rock Island County recites that William Winfield Bolds was convicted in that county of the offense of burglary on February 28, 1946, and was sentenced to confinement in the state penitentiary. Our statute, section 747.6, providеs that duly authenticated copies of former judgments and commitments “shall be competent and prima-facie evidence of such former judgment and commitment, and may be used in evidence upon the trial of said cause.” We upheld the admissibility of such authenticated copies in State v. Bullis,
It is not difficult to. determine the admissibility of these authenticated copies. Defendant’s major complaint at this point is that he was not sufficiently identified as the same person as the “William Bolds” and “William Winfield Bolds” who was convicted in the two Illinois cases. In passing, it should be pointed out that even if it should be held there was insufficient evidence of identification to permit submission to the jury of the question of the two previous convictions, a full reversal would not be required. The conviction of forgery would stand and the cause would be remanded for sentencing under the general provisions of section 718.1, supra. State v. Barlow,
*285
But there was here ample evidence to require submission to the jury оn the issue of the two alleged previous convictions. "We have held in several cases that the certified or authenticated, copies of the records of former convictions of a person of the same name are not of themselves enough to raise a jury question. State v. Smith,
The case of State v. McCarty,
Other authorities support the State’s position here. In State v. Bullis,
It is true that in the Bullis case there was also evidence of admissions, but we think it sufficiently appears this court would have held the warden’s testimony alone ample to require submission of the question of identification to the jury.
Similar evidence has been upheld as sufficient in other jurisdictions. In Lovan v. Commonwealth,
To the same effect is State v. Spencer,
“The identity of the appellant was shown by the testimony of a guard of the Texas penitentiary in which the appellant was' confined under the judgments of conviction and by photographs taken of him when he was received at the penitentiary. Some question is made as to the sufficiency of these proofs, hut we think them amply sufficient to sustain the verdict of the jury.” (Italics supplied.)
In the Kentucky and Washington cases cited the testimony *287 of the employees of tbe penitentiaries and the photographs did no more than did the testimony of the guard, Acord, here. In each case there was proof of previous convictions of one with an identical, or very similar, name to that of the defendant on trial. There was also proоf that the defendant had been an inmate of the penal institution to which the accused named in the certified or authenticated transcripts was sentenced. In the case under consideration here the time of incarceration fits the date of sentence in each instance. Certainly there was a Jury question аs to identity. Any other holding would be highly unrealistic. We have gone to considerable lengths in our decided cases in holding the proof on this point insufficient, but we have never gone as far as the defendant asks us to do here.
Nor do we see any injustice in such a holding. True it is that the State must make its case, without help from the defendant. But surеly a fair inference of identity and previous conviction may be drawn by the jury from the circumstances shown in evidence. If they are not true, if the defendant is not the same person convicted in Illinois, if the guard was mistaken in identifying him as having been twice committed to the penitentiary, or if he was in fact committed there becausе of offenses other than those of which a person of the same name was convicted in Kane and Bock Island Counties, he could readily have said so, and the proof should not have been difficult for him to produce. Yet, although he took the witness stand, no word of his testimony denied the previous convictions. In fact, hе did not refer to them in any way. Of course, this failure of defendant had not occurred when his motion for directed verdict was made at the close of the State’s evidence, but we think it does illustrate the injustice of a too technical ruling against the State on the question of identity. It did appear when the motion was renewed аt the close of all the evidence, and furnishes much support, if support were needed, for the ruling adverse to defendant at that time.
II Wigmore on Evidence, Third Ed., section 285, page 162, says: “The nonproduction of evidence that would naturally have been produced by an honest and therefore fearless claimant рermits the inference that its tenor is unfavorable to the party’s cause”
*288
We follow this rule in State v. Cotton,
We find no error prejudicial to the defendant. — Affirmed.