Case ID: sw2d_35/html/0730-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "CHRISTIAN, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

WHITEHEAD v. STATE.
    No. 14164.
    Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    Feb. 18, 1931.
    Kirby, King & Overshiner, of Abilene, for appellant.
    Lloyd W. Davidson, State’s Atty., of Austin, for the State.
   CHRISTIAN, J.

The offense is swindling, a felony; the punishment, confinement in the penitentiary for two years.

The indictment is based on subdivision 4 of article 1546, Penal Code, which denounces as swindling the obtaining of property by the giving or drawing of a cheek, etc. A motion to quash the indictment was duly presented to the court, and overruled. The indictment is fatally defective. It fails to set out directly the intent with which the property was acquired. It must be “with intent to appropriate the same to the use of the party so acquiring.” Article 1545, Penal Code; Stringer v. State, 13 Tex. App. 520. It is not alleged that the check was delivered to the owner of the property. Mathis v. State, 113 Tex. Cr. R. 164, 18 S.W.(2d) 920. There is no direct and positive allegation that appellant did not have on deposit with the. drawee bank sufficient funds to pay said check. We do not undertake to say that the indictment is not defective in other particulars.

The judgment is reversed, and the prosecution ordered dismissed.

PER CURIAM.

The foregoing opinion of the Commission of Appeals has been examined by the judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals and approved by the court.