Title: State v. Patsel

State: indiana

Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court

Document:

240 Ind. 240 (1960)
163 N.E.2d 602
STATE OF INDIANA
v.
PATSEL.
No. 29,743.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
Filed January 11, 1960.
*241 Edwin K. Steers, Attorney General, Owen S. Boling, Assistant Attorney General, Donald K. Travis, Prosecuting Attorney, 72nd Judicial Circuit, and Marshall F. Kizer, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, 72nd Judicial Circuit, for appellant.
Galeman Dexter and Albert B. Chipman, both of Plymouth, for appellee.
JACKSON, J.
This is an appeal by the State of Indiana from a judgment of the trial court in a criminal case, sustaining the appellee's motion for a directed verdict made at the close of the state's evidence and before any evidence was introduced on behalf of the appellee.
The appellee was charged by indictment in six counts, the first three of which charged the appellee with feloniously, falsely and fraudulently making, forging and counterfeiting a certain last will and testament purporting to have been made by one Amanda Harley; the last three of said counts charging the appellee with unlawfully, feloniously, fraudulently and knowingly uttering, publishing, offering and petitioning for probate in the Marshall Circuit Court of Marshall County, Indiana, a certain false, forged and counterfeit last will and testament purporting to have been made and executed by one Amanda Harley.
*242 Thereafter the appellee filed his motion to quash all six counts of the indictment for the following reasons,
The court overruled the appellee's motion as to counts one and four and sustained it as to counts two, three, five and six. Appellee thereupon waived arraignment and pleaded not guilty to counts one and four of the indictment.
The pertinent parts of the counts of the indictment to which the appellee pleaded and on which he stood trial read as follows, to-wit:
The record discloses that Amanda Harley died on September 30, 1957, domiciled in and a resident of Marshall County, Indiana. That the petition for probate of her alleged will and issuance of letters testamentary was signed by Raymond Patsel, appellee, on October 4, 1957, and on the same day filed in the Marshall Circuit Court, whereupon said alleged will was in said court admitted to probate and record and letters testamentary ordered issued to appellee on his filing bond and qualifying as such executor, all of which was done on October 4, 1957.
Appellant's assignment of error contains four specifications, to-wit:
The pertinent part of the statute authorizing the prosecution in this case, Acts 1905, ch. 169, § 676, p. 584, being § 10-2102, Burns' 1956 Replacement, reads as follows:
The evidence in this case is conflicting in that the subscribing witness at the time of the probate of decedent's will, testified among other things, that Amanda Harley signed the will in her presence. The State's evidence was that at the time of the alleged execution of the will the testatrix, by reason of illness, was not able to write or sign anything, that the will in question was prepared by the scrivener without consultation with the testatrix, that it was not delivered to testatrix, but to the executor named in the alleged will, that the executor named in the alleged will was in exclusive possession thereof for two weeks after said delivery to him, that the scrivener who prepared said will was employed by said executor and not the testatrix, that the conduct of the testatrix in requesting her granddaughter, on May 29, 1957, to make some notes as to the disposition of certain personal property to be incorporated as a codicil to a former will made several years previous to the alleged last will indicated that she had no knowledge of the making or execution of the will allegedly executed on May 1, 1957, that the testimony of a handwriting expert who examined known signatures of the testatrix and compared them with the signature appended to the alleged last will of testatrix was that testatrix' signature on the alleged will was not that of testatrix but was a forgery.
The trial court erred in sustaining the defendant's motion for and directing a verdict of acquittal.
Bobbitt and Landis, JJ., concur.
Arterburn, C.J., concurs in result.
Achor, J., not participating because of illness.
NOTE.  Reported in 163 N.E.2d 602.