Case ID: ohio_5/html/0246-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

James McMillen v. State of Ohio.
    Indictment for having in possession counterfeit blank bank notes must specifically describe them.
    This was a writ of error to the court of common pleas of Hamilton county, allowed on the 10th of December, and made returnable to the court in bank. The plaintiff in error has been convicted, with William Stephens, upon an indictment in these words-' “ That the said William Stéphens and James McMillen on February 14, 1831, with force and arms, at the township of Delhi,, in the county of Hamilton, did feloniously have in their possession two hundred counterfeit bank notes not filled up, and the signatures not being thereto affixed, which counterfeit bank notes were intended to be filled up with forged writing and signatures, in imitation of the true and genuine bank notes, of the president, directors, and company of the Bank of the United-States, given for the payment of ten dollars each, the said W. Stephens and J. McMillen, then and there having said counterfeit bank notes in their possession for *the purpose of disposing-of the same with a fraudulent intent, contrary to the form of the statute,” etc. '
    Error assigned, that the papers charged to be bank notes in? blank, ought to-be more specially described and set out in the indictment.
    G-. Swan, for plaintiff in error.
   By the Court :

An indictment for forgery must describe the instrument alleged to be forged specifically. In an indictment for larceny it is enough to set forth that bank notes of a general description, to a specific-amount in value, were stolen. It is not the specific character of the notes, but the theft, that constitutes the essence of the crime. In a prosecution for forgery it is different. The forged instrument must be set out, that* the court may determine advisedly whether the fabrication of it,constitute the crime inhibited by the-law. All the precedents are so, and so are the authorities. 6 Term, 162; 1 East, 180; Arch. C. L. 19. The judgment must be reversed.