Case ID: scl_36/html/0158-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Curia, per Evans, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State v. Isaac Grooms.
    
    The defendant, knowing that it was not genuine, passed a bill or paper having the appearanee of having been long used, and printed in the ordinary form of a bank bill, but not signed by any one as President or Cashier. The jury found him guilty of swindling, and the Court sustained the verdict.
    
      Before Evans, J., at Marlborough, Fall Term, 1849.
    INDICTMENT FOR SWINDLING.
    The facts of the case were these: The defendant passed what purported to be a bill issued by some Rail Road and Banking Company in Mississippi, in payment for flour and other articles purchased from the prosecutors, (one Henly) and others. They were wagoners, from North Carolina. The defendant, when he passed the bill, represented it as good money — said it was rail road money, and if the prosecutor would carry it to Cheraw, he would get silver for it. The bill was passed in the day time, and the prosecutor could read. The bill, on inspection, was in the ordinary printed form, but was not signed by any one as President or Cashier; nor were the blanks used in such bills filled up, such as dates, &c. It was proved that the defendant had before passed the bill to another person, and it was returned to him. The defendant is an ignorant man, and cannot read, and it was proved that he had given value for it when he got it. I charged that, to pass, as good, a bill purporting to be a bank bill, was an indictable offence as a fraud, because bank bills formed a part of the currency of the country: but to establish such oifence, the bill must bear such resemblance to a bank bill, as was calculated to deceive.
    It was submitted to the jury to decide — 1. From the appearance of the bill did it bear such resemblance to an ordinary bank bill, as was calculated to deceive a common man, such as the prosecutor was? The bill had the appearance of having been long in use. It was discolored, as old bills-usually are.
    2. Did the defendant know it was not á genuine bill ? and did he pass it as such, with the intent to defraud the prosecutor ?
    The jury found the defendant guilty.
    The defendant appealed and moved for a new trial,
    1. Because the bill or paper passed to the prosecutors was not such a bill or paper as was calculated to deceive, nor would the passing of such a bill or paper, to persons who could read and write, amount, in law, to the offence of swindling ; and his Honor should have so instructed the jury.
    2. Because there was no proof that the defendant knew, at the time of the transfer, that the bill or paper was not a current bank bill, of some sort or other.
    
      Dudley Sp Johnson for the motion.
    
      MPIver, SoVr, contra.
   Curia, per Evans, J.

The defendant is indicted under the Act of 1791. That part of the Act which relates to cheating and swindling is, “ if any one shall overreach, cheat, or defraud by any cunning swindling acts or devices, so that the ignorant and unwary, who are deluded, thereby lose their money and other property, every such person exercising such infamous practices, shall on conviction ” 6pc.

Exactly what the Legislature meant by these words, it is difficult to determine. The words are comprehensive enough to include all frauds effected by means of any cunning swindling acts or devices; but so far as we can gather from what is said in the few cases which have been decided, the construction, heretofore, has been that the fraud must be effected by means of some of those public tokens for the use of which an indictment for a cheat would lie at common law. Allowing the defendant the benefit of this construction, is he guilty of the offence charged. In the case of the State v. Kott and Carr it was held that bank bills, whether they purport to be issued by a bank of this or another-State, are a part of the currency representing money, received by the public as such, and that a fraud effected by means.of what seemed to be, but was not, a genuine bank bill, was a cheat at -common law. The only question is whether the bill in this case bore such resemblance to a bank bill as was, in the words of the Act, calculated “ to deceive the ignorant and unwary.”

A bank officer, or one accustomed to examine bills minutely, would not have been deceived; but the Act shows that the frauds which it intended to. punish were those whereby the ignorant and unskilful might be defrauded. This case differs in no very important particular from the case of Kott and Carr. In that case there was a scrawl, where the names of the officers should have been written. In this case there was nothing; but the bill had the appearance of having been long used, and we all know that on old bills the names are often so obliterated as to be frequently illegible and sometimes entirely effaced. Whether the bill in this case bore such a resemblance to a true bill as to deceive the ignorant and unwary, or, as the Circuit Judge put it to the jury, “ to deceive a common man, such as the prosecutor was,” was a question of fact which could only be resolved by the jury. It is clear the prisoner intended a fraud, and did deceive the prosecutor, by passing to him what bore the pictorial marks of an ordinary bank bill, and the jury having found him guilty, this Court does not perceive any thing in the morality or the law of his case which entitles him to a new trial.

The motion is dismissed.

Wardlaw, Frost and Withers, JJ., concurred.

Motion refused.