Case ID: sw_243/html/0466-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "MORROW, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

WILSON v. STATE.
    (No. 6980.)
    (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
    June 21, 1922.)
    Forgery <⅞=544(!/2) — Evidence held insufficient for conviction where check not in evidence.
    Where it did not directly appear that the alleged forged cheek was put in evidence, evidence held not to support a. conviction for forgery, though there was other evidence tending to show that defendant was the maker and passer of a check signed in the name of a fictitious person.
    Appeal from Criminal District Court, Tar-rant County; George E. Hosey, Judge.
    H. B. Wilson was convicted of forgery, and he appeals.
    Reversed and remanded for another trial.
    See, also, 242 S. W. 229.
    Geo. W. Dayton, H. M. Myers, and W. E. Myres, all of Fort Worth, for appellant.
    Jesse M. Brown, Cr. Dist. Atty., of Fort Worth, and R. G. Storey, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
   MORROW, P. J.

The conviction is for forgery; punishment fixed at confinement in the penitentiary for a period of two years.

The instrument was a check drawn on the First National Bank of Wichita Falls in favor of I-I. S. Lattimore in the sum of $5 and purporting to bear the signature of I-I. B. Wells.’ Lattimore was requested by the appellant to cash his check for $5. Appellant represented himself to be an attorney of Wichita Falls, bearing .the name of H. B. Wells. The evidence shows that all this was false, and that Wells was a fictitious person. Other testimony was sufficient to identify the appellant as the maker and passer of the check.

There were instruments used for comparison apparently before the jury, and testimony of experts touching the handwriting of the check. So far as we have been able to discern, the forged instrument does not appear in the statement.of facts. In this character of case, it seems to be imperative that, on appeal, it must be shown that the alleged forged Instrument was in evidence. Inferentially tliis may appear, but directly it does not. The record is not different from that in the case of Bobbitt v. State, 59 Tex. Cr. R. 315, 128 S. W. 1104. In the absence of the, forged instrument, the evidence is not sufficient to support the conviction, and the reversal of the judgment and the remanding of the cause for another trial become necessary ; and this is ordered. 
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