Case Name: Richard Gatewood v. The State of Ohio
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1829-12
Citations: 4 Ohio 353
Docket Number: 
Parties: Richard Gatewood v. The State of Ohio.
Judges: 
Reporter: Cases decided in the supreme court of ohio : upon the circuit at the special sessions in Columbus
Volume: 4
Pages: 353–354

Head Matter:
Richard Gatewood v. The State of Ohio.
Indictment for stealing bank-bills must aver a scienter, or it is defective.
Error to the court of common pleas of Hamilton county.
Gatewood was indicted for stealing bank-bills. The indictment was founded upon section 16 of the act for the punishment of crimes, vol. xxii. 261, which provides : That if any person shall steal, etc., auy bank-bills, etc., of fifty dollars, or upward, knowing them to he such, every person, etc.
The indictment contained no averment that the prisoner knew the bills stolen to be bank-bills. The prisoner was convicted and sentenced ; and this writ was sued out to reverse the judgment.
Strait & Hawes, for the plaintiff in error :
*An indictment for an offense against the statute must, with certainty and precision, charge the defendant to have committed the facts under the circumstances, and with the intent mentioned in the statute, and if any one of these ingredients be omitted, the omission is fatal on demurrer, in arrest of judgment or on error. Arch. C. L. 23, 25; Stark. C. L. 242.
The indictment, then, ought to have averred that the defendant knew the bills to be bank-bills.
On the statute Eliz., which makes it high treason to clip, round, or file any coin, etc., for wicked lucre or gain’s sake, the indictment must charge the offense to have been committed for the sake of wicked lucre or gain. 1 Hale, 220.
The same doctrine applies to an indictmen t upon the black act. Leach, 556 ; Arch. C. L. 223.
The same principle is found in Stark. O. L. 244.
The case of The King v. Lukes and others, 3 Term, 537, under the statute 36 Geo. III., Ch. 60, see. 2, is fully in point with the present case, and shows the indictment to be bad.
There was no argument in behalf of the state.

Opinion:
By the Court :
The objection taken is fatal. Where the scienter is part of the statutory description of the offense, it must be so laid in the indictment.
Judgment reversed.