Case Name: Lon Lamb v. The State
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1912-06-28
Citations: 67 Tex. Crim. 474
Docket Number: No. 1636
Parties: Lon Lamb v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Criminal Reports
Volume: 67
Pages: 474–474

Head Matter:
Lon Lamb v. The State.
No. 1636.
Decided June 28, 1912.
Forgery—Indictment—Explanatory Averments.
Where, in an indictment for forgery, the instrument set out in the indictment was so uncertain on its face as not to show that it created a pecuniary obligation the same was insufficient, in the absence of explanatory averments alleging its true meaning.
Appeal from the District Court of Cherokee. Tried below before the Hob. Jas. I. Perkins.
Appeal from a conviction of forgery; penalty, two years imprisonment in the penitentiary.
The opinion states the case.
Ho brief on file for appellant.
G. E. Lane, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

Opinion:
HARPER, Judge.
—Appellant was indicted for forgery and passing
a forged instrument, there being two counts in the indictment. The alleged forged instrument is as follows:
"Rusk, Texas, April 1, 1911. Ho. 17.
"The First Hational Bank of Rusk, Texas.
Pay to the order of Been Richert $50.75
' Fifty Cents and 75/100 Dollars.
Knox Overton."
The indictment contains no explanatory averments, alleging for what amount the check was intended. The statute reads that any person is guilty of forgery who, with intent to defraud, shall make any false instrument in writing, purporting to he the act of another, in such manner that the false instrument would create a pecuniary obligation, and we have puzzled our brain trying to decipher what amount this check would create a legal liability for, and in the absence of any explanation, we are not able to tell. Mr. Bishop lays odown the rule that if a writing is so incomplete as to have an apparent uncertainty, the indictment must allege such extrinsic facts as will enable the court to see, if genuine, its meaning (2 Bish. Cr. Law, 545). This instrument is so uncertain on its face, in the absence of innuendo averments alleging its true meaning, that the indictment should have been quashed and the court erred in not so doing.
The "judgment is reversed and the prosecution dismissed.
Reversed and dismissed.