Case Name: Alexander C. Farrington v. The State or Ohio
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1841-12
Citations: 10 Ohio 354
Docket Number: 
Parties: Alexander C. Farrington v. The State or Ohio.
Judges: 
Reporter: Cases decided in the supreme court of ohio : upon the circuit at the special sessions in Columbus
Volume: 10
Pages: 354, 355–357

Head Matter:
Alexander C. Farrington v. The State or Ohio.
The letter of a cashier of a bank in New York, to -whom paper said to be forged had been sent for collection, making suggestions as to the residence of the parties to the paper, is not competent evidence against one charged with the forgery. Nor is the protest of a notary, certifying that the parties to the paper are not to be found in New York.
This is a writ of error to the court of common pleas of the county of Gallia.
The plaintiff in error was indicted at the April term of the court 355] of common pleas, 1841, and tried, convicted, and sentenced *to imprisonment in the penitentiary, at the July term thereafter, for tbe crime of forgery. This conviction be seeks to reverse by tbe prosecution of this writ of error.
J. Welch, for the plaintiff in error,
cited 2 Stark Ev. 374; Titford v. Knott, 2 Johns. Cas. 211; Goodtitle v. Braham, 4 Term, 497.
A. T. Holcomb, for the state.

Opinion:
Wood, J.
This indictment contains numerous counts. In some of them tbe plaintiff is charged with the forgery of certain promissory notes in the name of John O. Batley as maker, bearing date in New York, payable to the order of James Murphy, at the City Bank, and also with tbe forgery thereon of the indorsement of the payee, and with the intent to defraud the Bank of Gallipolis.
In other counts the forgery of certain bills of exchange is averred, . with the same intent, in the name of M. S. as' the drawer, with the acceptances of John Murphy, the drawee, and the indorsements of L. T., the payee, also forged thereon by the plaintiff in error, and all payable at the City Bank, and bearing date at the same place with the said promissory notes.
On the trial several bills of exceptions were taken to points ruled by the court. These exceptions are far more numerous than the counts in the indictment, and we may say, with the Supreme Court of New York, in the People v. Rathbun, 21 Wend. 547, that many of them are so extremely frivolous, that the counsel who procured their original insertion have omitted them in framing the argument for the court, and those not especially noticed by us may all be considered as overruled by the authority of the maxim, de minimis non curat lex.
Two of the exceptions, however, are not, in our opinion, of this character. They are referred to in the second assignment for error, and should both unquestionably be sustained. It appeal's from the record, that on the trial it became essential for the prosecution to prove that Batley and Sullivan, the maker *of the notes and [356 drawer of the bills of exchange, were fictitious persons, and for this purpose the letter of the cashier of the City Bank, to whom said notes and bills had been forwarded, was offered in evidence. In this letter there was the acknowledgment of the receipt of the notes and bills, and an expression of regret by the cashier that he had not been furnished with a knowledge of the residence of the parties, as it might be necessary in case of the dishonor of the paper.
For the same purpose, the prosecution also offered in evidence the protest of the notes and bills, in which it was certified by the notary that the parties to the paper could not be found in New York. The defense objected to the admission of this testimony, but the objection was overruled and the evidence received. In this, it seems to us, the court of common pleas most clearly erred, to the prejudice of the rights of the plaintiff in error.
It is a fundamental principle in this state, that in criminal prosecutions the accused has not only the right to be heard, by himself or counsel, but to meet his witnesses face to face; to require the testimony against him to be under the sanction of an oath, and the witnesses to be subject to any competent cross-examination.
The letter of the cashier inquiring for information of the residence of the parties to these bills and notes, and from which it was supposed to be inferable they did not reside in New York, and were consequently fictitious, was the mere ipse dixit of a third person, and the protest of the notary for the purpose for which it was here offered, was nothing more; and their admission as testimony is warranted by no principle of law.
Judgment reversed.