20 Or. 192 | Or. | 1890
— The defendant was indicted, tried and convicted of the crime of forgery, from which judgment he appeals. The indictment charges that on June 28, 1890, the defendant made, and forged a promissory note for
At the trial in the court below, after the evidence for the state was closed, defendant’s counsel moved the court that the jury be instructed to render a verdict of not guilty upon the ground that the evidence failed to prove the crime charged. The refusal of the court to give this instruction is the only error claimed on this appeal. An examination of this question renders it necessary to briefly state the evidence as given on the trial, which was as follows: On June 28,1890, the defendant called at the office of J. T. Milner, in Mulkey’s block in the city of Portland, and represented to Mr. Milner that his name was John Williams, and applied for a loan of $85.50, offering to secure the same by a chattel mortgage on a team of horses. He drove the team up in front of the office and Mr. Milner looked at them and agreed to make the loan. The note was drawn up by Milner and the defendant signed the name of John Williams thereto, and Milner paid him the money. When the note became due, the defendant did not call to pay it and Milner wrote two letters to John Williams calling on him to pay the note, one of which he directed to Albina. A Mr. John Williams, of Albina, responded to the letter sent him, but denied ever signing the note. That no part of the note has been paid, nor has defendant ever called at Milner’s office, where the note was to be paid; that defendant was a stranger to Milner, and he supposed his true name was John Williams, and would not have made the loan had he known otherwise; that defendant’s true name is Ed. Wheeler, as stated in the indictment, and not John Williams. The inquiry here is whether under this state of facts the defendant was properly convicted of the crime of forgery. Forgery is defined by Blackstone to be “ the fraudulent making or alteration of a writing to the prejudice of another’s rights.” (4 Bl. Com. 247.) Willes, J., in Regina v. Epps, 4 F. & F. 81, says:
In Sheppard’s case, 1 Leach, 226, the prisoner purchased some silverware of the prosecutor, giving in payment therefor a draft which he indorsed with the name “H. Turner, Esq.,” his true name being Sheppard. The prosecutor testified that he gave credit to the prisoner and not to the draft, the prisoner being a stranger to him. The jury found the prisoner guilty, and on a case reserved on the question whether, as the prosecutor had sworn that he gave credit to the prisoner and not to the draft, it could amount to the crime of forgery, the twelve judges were unanimously of the opinion that the conviction was right; for it was a false instrument, not drawn by any such person as it purported to be; and the using of the fictitious name was only for the purpose of deceiving. So in Whiley’s case, stated by Mr. Eussell in his work on Crimes, the prisoner was charged with forging a bill of exchange, drawn in the name of Samuel Milward, in payment for some goods by him purchased of the prosecutor. The prisoner’s real name was Samuel Whiley and was a stranger to the prosecutor, who testified that he took the draft on the credit of the prisoner, whom he did not know; that he presumed the prisoner’s name was that which he had written, and had no reason to