Case Name: Mowbray v. The Commonwealth
Court: General Court of Virginia
Jurisdiction: Virginia
Decision Date: 1841-06
Citations: 11 Leigh 643
Docket Number: 
Parties: Mowbray v. The Commonwealth.
Judges: 
Reporter: Virginia Reports
Volume: 38
Pages: 741–746

Head Matter:
Mowbray v. The Commonwealth.
June, 1841.
Forgery — Commitment lor Forging and Uttering— Effect. — A person examined in county court on a .charge of forging an order, and committed by that court for trial in circuit superior court for .the forgery only, cannot he tried there for uttering and publishing the order.
Indictments — Counts for Distinct Offences — Effect.— Therefore, if the indictment against the prisoner contains counts for the forgery, and counts for uttering and publishing, the circuit superior court ought to quash these latter counts.
Same — Defective Counts — Effect upon the Good Counts in Cases of Penitentiary Crimes. — The rule of practice in criminal cases, that ii an indictment contain several counts, some good and others faulty, and a general verdict of guilty be found, the bad counts will not effect the validity of the good, and j udgment will be given on those which are good,— is not applicable to cases of penitentiary crimes in Virginia, where the jury is to ascertain the term of imprisonment, since the evidence on the bad counts may aggravate the punishment imposed by the verdict. v
Error to a judgment of the circuit superior court of Kanawha, whereby Mowbray was sentenced to three years imprisonment in the penitentiary.
The indictment against him contained seven counts. The first four of them were alike, only varying from each other in minute particulars, which it is unnecessary to mention, and charged him with having felo-niously forged, procured to be forged, and assisted in forging, the following order in writing, directed to Lewis Ruffner and company, to wit, “ Kan : Salines, Dec. 22nd 1840. Messrs. Lewis Ruffner & Co. Please let the bearer have twelve dollars in the store, and ch’d A. Donally by V. B. D.” The last three counts varied likewise from each other in some immaterial particulars, and charged the prisoner with having feloniously uttered and published as true, and attempted to use as true, for his own benefit, a certain other forged and counterfeited order in writing (setting out the same order recited in the first four counts).
Upon the arraignment of the prisoner, and before he pleaded, his counsel “moved the court to quash the whole indictment, and each count thereof, because the offences charged therein were variant and different from the offences for which the prisoner was tried by the examining court, and sent on to be tried in the circuit superior court.” And in support of this motion he produced a copy of the record of the examination of the prisoner in the county court of Kanawha, whereby it appeared, that the prisoner was examined there, and remanded for trial in the circuit superior court, upon the charge of forging the order only, and not at all on the charge of uttering the forged order. The court overruled the motion, and the prisoner’s counsel excepted.
The prisoner then pleaded not guilty, and was put upon his trial. The jury found him “ guilty of the charges as in the indictment against him alleged, and ascertained the term of his confinement in the public jail and penitentiary house to be three years.” And the court passed sentence on him accordingly.
Upon the petitiori of the prisoner, this court allowed him a writ of error to the judgment.
G-reenhow for the prisoner.
The attorney general for the commonwealth.
Indictments — Counts — Forgery. — The principal case is cited in Scott v. Com., 14 Gratt. 689; foot-note to Linkouns v. Com., 9 Leigh 608; foot-note to Page v. Com., 9 Leigh 683; foot-note to Com. v. Cohen, 2 Va. Cas. 158; footnote to Com. v. Ervin, 2 Va. Cas. 337; Dowdy v. Com., 9 Gratt. 731, 732; Hausenfluck v. Com., 85 Va. 710, 8 S. E. Rep. 683; Jones v. Com., 86 Va. 952, 12 S. E. Rep. 950; State v. Smith, 24 W. Va. 817.
Same — Defective Counts — Effect.—Eor a discussion of this question, see the principal case cited in foot-note to Kirk v. Com., 9 Leigh 627; Clere v. Com., 3 Gratt. 618. and note; Rand v. Com., 9 Gratt. 749; Shifflet v. Com., 14 Gratt. 672; Richards v. Com., 81 Va. 115.
See monographic note on “Indictments, Informa-tions and Presentments” appended to Boyle v. Com., 14 Gratt. 674.
In order to understand the points adjudged in this case, it is necessary to advert to the following provisions of the statutes of Virginia—
1. The statute regulating criminal proceedings against free persons, 1 Rev. Code, ch. 169, after providing for the examination of free persons charged with crimes by the county and corporation courts, and for the commitment of them for trial in the circuit superior courts, in case the county or corporation courts shall think they ought to be there tried; and providing that if the accused shall be acquitted or discharged by the county or corporation court on such examination, such acquittal or discharge shall be a bar to further prosecution for the same offence ¡ — enacts (§8, p. 661,) that “before any person charged with treason or felony shall be tried before any circuit superior court, he or she shall be examined, in the manner prescribed by law, by the court of the county or corporation wherein such offence was committed, unless such examination be dispensed with by the assent of the prisoner entered of record in such circuit superior court.”
2. The statute against thefts and forgeries &c. Id. ch. 154, § 4, p. 579, enacts, that if any free person shall falsely make, forge or counterfeit &c. — any letter of credit or other writing, to the prejudice of another’s right — or shall, with like intent, utter or publish as true, any false, forged or counterfeited paper or writing, knowing the same to be false, forged &c. — such person shall be deemed guilty of felony; and being lawfully convicted thereof, shall be punished by confinement in the public jail and penitentiary for not less than one nor more than ten years. Which was so altered by an act of March 1826, Supp. to Rev. Godefch. 237, § 1, p. 299, that the imprisonment shall not be less than two years.
And 3. by the statute concerning the penitentiary. 1 Rev. Code, ch. 171, § 12, p. 619, in all cases where the punishment is imprisonment in the penitentiary, the jury which convicts, ascertains by its verdict the term of imprisonment. — Note in Original Edition.

Opinion:
G-HOLSON, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court. The motion of the prisoner which the court overruled, was a motion "to quash the whole indictment, and each count thereof." Construing the motion in such manner as to give to all its parts their full and fair meaning, we deem it, not as a motion or as only equivalent to a motion to quash generally, but that it embraced a motion to quash each of the counts of the said indictment, singly and separately. . And so viewing it, this court is of opinion, that the circuit superior court erred in wholly overruling it. The prisoner had been examined by the county court, and sent on to be tried of and concerning the offence of having feloni-ously forged the order in writing set out in the indictment, and for that offence only. But he was arraigned in the circuit superior court on an indictment, which not only contained four counts for forging the order, but also three other counts charging him with having uttered and published it as true &c. The last three counts were "improperly inserted in the indictment: they charged, not degrees of the same offence charged in the preceding counts, but (according to the decision of this court in Page's case, *9 Leigh 683), a distinct substantive crime. Being a distinct crime, the circuit superior court had no jurisdiction to try the prisoner therefor, until he had been regularly examined by the county court, and sent on to the circuit superior court to be tried for it according to law, M'Caul's case, 1 Virg. Ca. 271, 300 ; Mabry's case, 2 Id. 396 ; Huffman's case, 6 Rand. 685, but the three counts being improperly contained in the indictment, the motion of the prisoner's counsel to quash each one of them was legal and in order, Com'th v. Cohen, 2 Va. Ca. 231, and ought to have been sustained.
It is then proper that we should reverse the judgment of the court below, which overruled the prisoner's motion. But what more ? Shall we > arrest the judgment and direct a new trial ? — or shall we sustain the verdict of the jury, because it was general, and the indictment contained some good counts ? This is a question not entirely free from difficulty. The english rule is broad and general, that one good count in an indictment is sufficient to sustain a general verdict of guilty, however defective the others may be. The soundness of this rule we do not question, — and we deem it to be the law of V irginia as well as Bngland : but we do not think it applicable to the case now under consideration, nor indeed to many cases of general verdicts which may arise under our criminal laws. In JBngland, it is always true and always applicable, because there juries in criminal cases never do more than find the guilt or innocence of the accused, and the nature and quantum of the punishment are fixed by law or confided to the courts. In Virginia, it is always applicable and always true, except in certain cases where the funciions of juries in criminal cases have been extended and enlarged by statute; or, in other words, whenever the province of a jury in Virginia is the same as it would be in a like case in Dngland, the same rule is *applicable here as there. But owing to several causes-, especially the introduction of the penitentiary system, we have, in relation to a large class of crimes, considerably enlarged the powers and duties of juries in criminal cases, and clothed them with functions entirely unknown to the english law. Thus, in the trial of nearly all offences punishable with imprisonment, we have required our juries not only to say whether the accused be guilty or not guilty, but, if guilty, to say also what shall be the quantum of punishment. Such verdicts as these are clearly not those general verdicts of guilty merely, contemplated by the english law, and to which the rule now under consideration was intended to apply. The rule is sound and philosophical when applied to verdicts limited to the simple issue of guilty or not guilty ; because it cannot by possibility operate in such case to the injury of the accused. A general verdict of guilty declares the accused guilty of each and every count in the indictment, and if all were quashed but one, the verdict would still be the same, guilty, and no more. A discovery of defective counts, or a misjoinder of counts, might change the judgment of the court, but it could not affect the verdict of the jury, Bar different, however, would be the operation of the rule on those general verdicts under our law, which not only declare the guilt but ascertain the punishment of the accused. They find the prisoner guilty on all the counts of the indictment, and declare generally that he shall suffer imprisonment for so many years. Who shall say how they proportioned the punishment to the various offences ? We cannot charg'e them with the folly or injustice of having" punished some of the offences and pardoned others, after having found the prisoner equally guilty of all. How shall this court measure or estimate the verdict of the jury in the case of Mowbray ? It fixed his term of imprisonment at three years : did the jury intend to confine him two years for *the forgery, and one year for the uttering the forged order, or vice versa ? or did they intend to punish one offence and pardon the other ? if so, which ? But if the english rule, which we are now considering, be applicable to this case and others like it, we are bound to apply the entire finding of the jury to four out of the seven charges contained in the indictment, and to visit upon four offences a quantum of punishment which the jury themselves declared they intended to inflict on seven. Ray, had the jury doubled or trebled the amount of punishment, arid we should decide to quash every count of the indictment but one, the whole punishment would have to be visited on the isolated offence left, though it was the least, and though we might know from the declaration of every juryman, that but a trivial portion of the punishment was intended for it. But to place this question beyond doubt, let us suppose the jury in this case to have transcended the maximum punishment prescribed by law for the crime of forgery : can it be conceived that we would sustain the verdict after having stricken from the indictment the charge of every other offence whatever ? And yet, if the distinction we have taken above be not correct, the english doctrine would apply in all its force, for there would stand the general verdict of guilty, and the one good count in the indictment.
For these reasons, we are satisfied that the rule does not apply to cases in which the jury is required not only to pass on the guilt of the accused, but also to ascertain the amount of the punishment; and where, from the finding, it cannot be known in what manner the jury intended to apportion the punishment.
It is therefore the opinion of this court, that the circuit superior court erred in refusing to quash the last three counts of the indictment, and that as that error probably affected the verdict of the jury, the judgment on the verdict ought to be arrested.