Source: http://www.ecases.us/case/c92577/cross-v-north-carolina/
Timestamp: 2020-06-02 01:49:36
Document Index: 277764786

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 5209', '§ 5209', '§ 5209', '§ 1029', '§ 5418', '§ 5418']

Cross v. North Carolina, United States Supreme Court, Supreme Court, Federal Courts, COURT CASE
Argued October 22, 1889. Decided November 11, 1889. ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA.
*135 Mr. W.R. Henry, for plaintiffs in error.
Mr. Theodore F. Davidson, Attorney General of the State of North Carolina, for defendant in error.
*136 MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, delivering the opinion of the court, after stating the case, continued:
The plea in abatement was evidently drawn with reference to § 5209 of the Revised Statutes, Title, National Banks. That section provides, among other things, that "every president, director, cashier, teller, clerk or agent of any association . . . who makes any false entry in any book, report, or statement of the association, with intent, in either case, to injure or defraud the association or any other company, body politic or corporate, or any individual person, or to deceive any officer *137 of the association, or any agent appointed to examine the affairs of any such association; and every person who, with like intent, aids or abets any officer, clerk or agent in any violation of this section, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be imprisoned not less than five years nor more than ten."
The fallacy of this argument is in assuming that the offence described in § 5209 of the Revised Statutes, namely, the making, by an officer or agent of a national banking association, of a false entry in its books, reports or statements, with intent to injure or defraud the association, or others, or with the intent to deceive its officers or any agent appointed to examine its affairs, necessarily involves the crime of forgery, of which the defendants were found guilty. If the notes in question had not been forged, but, with or without the consent of the obligors, had been temporarily placed by the defendants among the assets of the bank, and entered upon its books, when they were not its property, with intent to deceive the agent appointed to examine its affairs, they could have been punished under § 5209. On the other hand, the crime defined in § 1029 of the Code of North Carolina would have been complete, if the defendants simply made and forged, or caused to be made and forged, or willingly assented to the making or *138 forgery of the notes described in the indictment, with intent to defraud, and did not follow it up by committing the crime against the United States of making false entries in respect thereto upon the books of the bank, with the intent to deceive the agent designated to examine its affairs. The crime against the State could not be excused or obliterated by committing another and distinct crime against the United States.
We do not think that the crime of which the defendants were found guilty is within either the words or scope of § 5418. The object of that section was to protect the general government against the consequences that might result from the forgery, alteration or counterfeiting of documents, records or writings, that had some connection with its business, as conducted by its own officers. The false making or forging of promissory notes or other securities, purporting to be executed by individuals, and made payable to or at a national banking association, cannot be said to have been done "for the purpose *139 of defrauding the United States," and to constitute the offence described in § 5418. Such an act may be in fraud of the bank or of its stockholders, but is not, in itself, or within the meaning of that section, a fraud upon the United States.
The argument in behalf of the plaintiffs in error fails to give effect to the established doctrine that the same act or series of acts may constitute an offence equally against the United States and the State, subjecting the guilty party to punishment under the laws of each government. This doctrine is illustrated in United States v. Marigold, 9 How. 560, 569; Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 410, 433; Moore v. Illinois, 14 How. 13, 19; and Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371, 390; in the first of which cases it was said that "the same act might, as to its character and tendencies, and the consequences it involved, constitute an offence against both the state and federal governments, and might draw to its commission the penalties denounced by either, as appropriate to its character in reference to each." If it were competent for Congress to give exclusive jurisdiction to the courts of the United States of the crime of falsely making or forging promissory notes, purporting to be executed by individuals, and made payable to or at a national bank, or of the crime of uttering or publishing as true any such falsely made or forged notes, it has not done so. Its legislation does not assume to restrict the authority, which the States have always exercised, of punishing in their own tribunals the crime of forging promissory notes and other commercial securities executed by private persons, and used for purposes of private business. The forgery of such instruments is none the less injurious to the welfare of the people of a State because they happen to be made payable to or at banking associations which come into existence under the authority of the United States. If the punishment by the State of the crime of forgery, of which the defendants were found guilty, leaves them exposed to punishment by the United States for having made false entries upon the books of the bank of which they were officers, with the intent to deceive the agent appointed by the general government to examine its affairs, it results from the fact that they are amenable to the laws of *140 the United States, as well as of the State of North Carolina, and may be subjected to punishment for violating the laws of each government. The forgery may have been committed in order that the instrument forged might thereafter become the basis of false entries upon the books of the bank. But that circumstance cannot defeat the authority of the State, charged with the duty of protecting its own citizens, from punishing the forgery as, in itself, a distinct, separate offence committed within its limits and against its laws.
DocketNumber： 1084
Citation Numbers： 132 U.S. 131, 10 S. Ct. 47, 33 L. Ed. 287, 1889 U.S. LEXIS 1850
Filed Date： 11/11/1889
Berg v. United States , 176 F.2d 122 ( 1949 )
Thomas v. State , 122 So. 2d 535 ( 1960 )
Bank of Orland v. Harlan , 188 Cal. 413 ( 1922 )
Nastasi v. Aderhold , 201 Ga. 237 ( 1946 )
State v. Breaux , 161 La. 368 ( 1926 )
Ex Parte Groom , 87 Mont. 377 ( 1930 )
State v. . Cross , 106 N.C. 650 ( 1890 )
State Ex Rel. v. Mills , 82 Okla. Crim. 155 ( 1945 )