Opinion ID: 712237
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Forgery as a Matter of Law

Text: 22 Ms. Jaynes next argues that the trial court erred in denying her motion for judgment of acquittal because she was not guilty of forgery as a matter of law. We review the denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal using the same standard as the trial court. United States v. Fleming, 19 F.3d 1325, 1328 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 93, 130 L.Ed.2d 44 (1994). We must view all the evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the prosecution. United States v. Madrigal, 43 F.3d 1367, 1369 (10th Cir.1994), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1808, 131 L.Ed.2d 733 (1995). 23 Ms. Jaynes claims that, by endorsing the checks with her genuine signature, she represented (at least implicitly) that she was authorized to negotiate the check and that, even if she was wrong in believing she had such authority, she cannot be guilty of forgery because, as a matter of law, a false representation of authority is not forgery. She relies for her argument on a series of agency endorsement cases, beginning with our decision in Selvidge v. United States, 290 F.2d 894 (10th Cir.1961), which the Supreme Court followed the next year in Gilbert v. United States, 370 U.S. 650, 82 S.Ct. 1399, 8 L.Ed.2d 750 (1962). See also United States v. Faust, 850 F.2d 575 (9th Cir.1988); Asher v. United States, 480 F.2d 580 (6th Cir.1973). The rule that emerges from these cases is that one who executes an instrument purporting on its face to be executed by him as an agent, when in fact he has no authority to execute such instrument, is not guilty of forgery. Selvidge, 290 F.2d at 895 (emphasis added) (quoting 37 C.J.S. Forgery § 8, at 38). In all of the cases Ms. Jaynes relies on, however, not only did the defendant endorse the instrument, but also the defendant's endorsement appeared from the four corners of the instrument to be authorized by the named payee. For example, in Selvidge, the checks were made out to Selvidge's employer, a corporation, and Selvidge endorsed the employer's name on the back of the checks, followed by the words By Thelma L. Selvidge. 290 F.2d at 895. In Gilbert, the checks were made out to the defendant's clients, Mr. and Mrs. Bartfield, c/o R Milo Gilbert, and Mr. Gilbert endorsed the checks Daniel H. Bartfield/Charline R. Bartfield/R. Milo Gilbert, Trustee. 370 U.S. at 651, 82 S.Ct. at 1400. In Asher, the checks were made payable to Betty Asher, Custodian of Betty L. Elliott, and Ms. Asher endorsed the checks Betty Asher/Betty L. Elliott. 480 F.2d at 581. 4 24 The last case Ms. Jaynes relies on is perhaps most instructive. In Faust, the defendant endorsed three checks, all made payable to one of the defendant's companies and the Secretary of Transportation. The defendant endorsed the first check by signing his name, his company's name and Secretary of Transportation, followed by his initials. He endorsed the other two checks by signing the names of the two payees, but without placing his initials next to his signature of Secretary of Transportation. 850 F.2d at 578. The court held that the endorsement on the first check was an agency endorsement, for which Faust could not be guilty of forgery. Id. at 581-82. However, the court upheld Faust's forgery convictions with respect to the other two checks. The court noted that the two checks Faust endorsed Secretary of Transportation without adding his initials present a harder question: 25 On the one hand, there is no representation of agency on the face of the check, as there was in Gilbert and Asher. On the other hand, in offering a check endorsed with the words Secretary of Transportation, Faust did represent either that the Secretary of Transportation had herself signed the check, or that an agent of the Secretary had signed it. However, there is no indication on the check that Faust had signed the check as an agent of the Secretary. Faust's conduct thus amounted at least to a forgery of an agency endorsement. His defense that it was a fraudulent agency endorsement is no defense. A forged endorsement is also a forgery. 26 Id. at 582. 27 In this case, at least with respect to nine of the ten checks introduced into evidence, there was no indication on the face of the check that Ms. Jaynes was signing the check as an agent for Julia Jones, her grandmother. In fact, there was not even any indication that Ms. Jaynes and Ms. Jones were related. Ms. Jaynes admits that she wrote her grandmother's name in her normal handwriting but used her stylized signature in writing her own name, so from the face of the checks it appeared that they had been endorsed by two different people--Julia A. Jones and April M. Enos Jaynes. From the face of the checks, they appeared to contain simply blank endorsements by the holders of the instruments--not an agency endorsement. See Okla.Stat.Ann. tit. 12A, § 3-205(b) (West Supp.1996). Thus, with respect to nine of the ten checks, Ms. Jaynes's agency-endorsement argument must fail for want of an agency endorsement. See Ross v. United States, 374 F.2d 97, 102 (8th Cir.) (where the defendant endorsed Social Security checks in the name of her deceased mother without embellishment by way of agency or other qualifying designation, she could be guilty of forgery), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 882, 88 S.Ct. 130, 19 L.Ed.2d 177 (1967); United States v. Wilkins, 328 F.2d 120, 121 (2d Cir.1964) (where a check was negotiated by signing the payee's name without any written indication of agency, the endorser could be guilty of forgery despite an oral representation of authority). Cf. Jolly v. United States, 411 F.2d 618, 619 (9th Cir.1969) (where the payee's name had been forged on the back of a check and the defendant then signed his own name without any indication of agency, the defendant could be convicted of uttering a forged check). 28 The tenth check (that dated December 1, 1992) contained the letters EXT. after Ms. Jaynes's signature. Ms. Jaynes testified that she intended the letters to mean that she had endorsed the check as executrix for her grandmother's estate, and the endorsement could reasonably be so interpreted. 5 There was no evidence that Ms. Jaynes was the executrix of her grandmother's estate. 6 However, that fact is of no moment. If the endorsement purports on its face to be that of an agent, there can be no forgery under the Gilbert line of cases, even if the endorser misrepresents his or her authority. We need not determine, however, whether Ms. Jaynes could be guilty of forgery as a matter of law with respect to the December 1, 1992, check, because her conviction would still stand regardless of our resolution of that issue. 29 Count one of the indictment charged Ms. Jaynes with forging her grandmother's name on sixty-four Treasury checks, and count two charged her with uttering and passing those same checks. Presumably, the alleged forgeries were all part of a single scheme and thus properly charged in a single count. See e.g., United States v. Shorter, 809 F.2d 54, 56 (D.C.Cir.) (it is well established that two or more acts, each of which alone could constitute an offense, may be charged in a single count if they could be characterized as part of a single, continuing scheme), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 817, 108 S.Ct. 71, 98 L.Ed.2d 35 (1987). In any event, Ms. Jaynes does not contend that count one of the indictment was duplicitous. 7 Where, as here, a single count of an indictment alleges multiple acts or transactions, a conviction will not be disturbed for insufficiency of the evidence if there is sufficient evidence to support conviction on any of the acts charged, see, e.g., Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 420, 90 S.Ct. 642, 654, 24 L.Ed.2d 610 (1970); United States v. Bruno, 809 F.2d 1097, 1104 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1057, 107 S.Ct. 2198, 95 L.Ed.2d 853 (1987), even if other acts charged would not constitute a crime standing alone. We have concluded that the checks lacking the purported executrix endorsement were sufficient to support the charge of forgery. Thus, there was sufficient evidence to sustain Ms. Jaynes's conviction for forgery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 510(a)(1), even if the checks containing the letters EXT. could not support a charge of forgery as a matter of law.