Case ID: dc_2/html/0164-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Court", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

United States v. George Wood.
    A defendant indicted for counterfeiting a bank-note in Alexandria, D. C., is entitled to a peremptory challenge, it being felony without benefit of clergy, by the Virginia acts of December 19th, 1792, and December 8th, 1794.
    Palsely altering a promissory note in a material part, with intent to defraud any person, is a forging within the meaning of the statutes. ,L
    Indictment for counterfeiting a note of the Mechanics Bank of Alexandria.
    
      Mr. Mason, for the defendant,
    contended that the statutes of December 19, 1792, and December 8, 1794, do not punish the altering of a note ; that altering is not forging, or counterfeiting, or making. The note had been originally a note of the Merchants Bank, which had failed, and was altered so as to purport to be a note of the Mechanics Bank, which was in good credit.
   The Court

(Thruston, J., absent,)

on the prayer of Mr. Jones, for the United States, instructed the jury that the falsely altering of the note in a material part, with intent to defraud any person, was a forging within the meaning of the statutes.

Verdict, not guilty.