Case ID: dc_2/html/0111-02.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. Bennet Smith.
    A note of an unincorporated bank, “ payable out of the joint funds thereof and no other,” is a promissory note within the meaning of the Maryland statute, 1799, c. 75, 5 I.
    The note must be precisely and accurately set forth in the indictment.
    If the defendant be acquitted upon a flaw in the indictment, he will be remanded for trial at the next term.
    Indictment for forging a promissory note of the Farmers’ & Mechanics’ Bank, (not incorporated.)'
    
      Mr. Lear and Mr. Law, for the prisoner,
    objected to the admission of the note in evidence, because it was. “ payable out of the joint funds thereof, and no other,”- and therefore not such a promissory note as was intended by the Act of Maryland, 1799, e. 75, <§> 1, upon which the indictment was founded ; it not being, as they said, a negotiable promissory note; and they said it was not a bank-note within the meaning of the Maryland act of 1793, c. 35, § 2; and therefore could not' be given in evidence to support the averment that it purported to be a promissory note of the Farmers’ & Mechanics’ Bank.
   But

the Court

(Morsell, J., not sitting,)

overruled the objection.

The prisoner’s counsel then objected that in setting forth the note in the indictment, the signature was written “ W. Marbury,” but the signature to the note was “ ¥m. Marbury,” and for that variance the Court refused to suffer the note to be given in evidence.

Verdict, not guilty. Prisoner remanded to be tried at the next term on a new indictment.