Opinion ID: 1364586
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: forgery of public documents

Text: Code § 18.2-168, entitled Forging public records, etc., provides that [i]f any person forge a public record, or certificate, return, or attestation, of any public officer or public employee, in relation to any matter wherein such certificate, return, or attestation may be received as legal proof, or utter, or attempt to employ as true, such forged record, certificate, return, or attestation, knowing the same to be forged, he shall be guilty of a Class 4 felony. This statute controls our determination of the case; however, the first inquiry we make in our interpretation of this statute concerns the posture of English common law. Code § 1-10 provides that [t]he common law of England, insofar as it is not repugnant to the principles of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, shall continue in full force within the same, and be the rule of decision, except as altered by the General Assembly. Campbell argues that by utilizing the common-law term `forge,' Code § 18.2-168 necessarily invokes the common law and that one of the elements of the crime of forgery at common law was tangible harm or prejudice to the rights of another, irrespective of whether the writing involved was a private paper or a public record. While we agree that forgery of both public records and private papers was a common-law crime in England, we do not agree with Campbell's interpretation of the elements of those crimes at common law. [2] Of Forgery there are two kinds; First, by common law. Secondly, by the Statute. Sect. 1. Forgery by the common law seemeth to be an offence in falsely and fraudulently making or altering any matter of record; or any other authentic matter of a public nature.... 1 William Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 263 n. 1 (London, 8th ed. 1824). [A]t Common Law the Counterfeiting a Matter of Record is Forgery; for since the Law gives the highest Credit to all Records, it cannot but be of the utmost ill Consequence to the Publik to have them either forged or falsified. 2 Matthew Bacon, Abridgment  (1786). The common-law crime of forgery of public records, a capital offense in England, was augmented by statutes punishing the lesser offense of forgery of certain private documents. [3] See, e.g., An Act Concerning Counterfeit Letters or Privy Tokens to Receive Money or Goods in Others Men's Names, 1541-42, 33 Hen. VIII, ch. 1 (Eng.). Unlike the crime of forgery of public records in which ill Consequence to the Publik was conclusively presumed, and unlike the common-law crime of forgery of private papers in which proof of potential harm or prejudice to another was required, conviction of the several statutory offenses generally required proof of actual harm or prejudice to the rights of another person. See 1 Hawkins at 263 n. 1; 2 Bacon at . The question whether proof of harm or prejudice was essential to conviction of forgery of public documents as well as conviction of the crime of forgery of private writings and the distinctions between the common-law crimes and the statutory offenses were considered in Rex v. Ward, 92 Eng.Rep. 451 (K.B.1727). There, Ward was convicted of a charge of falsely making and forging a writing upon the back of a certificate in writing. Id. at 452. On appeal, Ward contended that forgery was an offense at common law only if the writing was a public document and that the writing in issue was a private paper. Ward also maintained that the statutes creating the crime of forgery of such a paper required proof of actual harm or prejudice and that, absent such proof against him, he was wrongfully convicted of forgery. The King maintained that forgery of private papers was not a crime at common law; that if such counterfeit letters had been at common law punishable as forgery, the making [of] that statute was unnecessary and useless, id. at 453; and that the proof of harm or prejudice resulting from Ward's acts was sufficient to support his conviction. Resolving these conflicting views, the court in Ward concluded that forgery of private writings, as well as forgery of public records, was an offense at common law; that proof of the potential for harm or prejudice to another was an element of the former but not of the latter; that the writing in issue was a public document; and that the conviction should be upheld, irrespective of proof of harm or prejudice to another. Most commentators have understood the Ward decision to establish that at common law it was forgery to make false private writings, as a bill of sale, bill of lading, an acquittance, a warrant of attorney, a bill of exchange. And [ Ward ] made this distinction between forgery at common law, and cheats by means of false tokens, under the stat. 33 Hen. 8. c. 1. that by the statute it was necessary the party should receive an actual prejudice, which was not necessary in forgery; in the latter case, it was sufficient if the party might be prejudiced by it. 1 William Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 263 n. 1 (London, 8th ed. 1824) (emphasis added); accord 2 William Russell, On Crimes 348-49 (Philadelphia, 4th ed. 1841); 3 Chitty's, Criminal Law 449-50 (Philadelphia, 1819); 2 Edward East's, Pleas of the Crown 859-60 (Philadelphia, 1806); 2 Matthew Bacon, Abridgment  (1786). Applying the rules reconciled and the principles established in Ward and summarized by contemporary commentators, we hold that actual harm or prejudice to the rights of another was not an element of the crime of forgery of public records at English common law and that, pursuant to Code §§ 1-10 and -11, this became the law of this Commonwealth. [4] Even so, Campbell contends that the posture of the English common law in 1776 has been altered by the General Assembly. Specifically, he maintains that the history of § 18.2-168 and its statutory predecessors makes clear that harm or prejudice is an element of forgery of public records. The Code of 1819, he says, belies the Commonwealth's argument ... that `prejudice' has somehow been statutorily excised from the elements of the crime of public records forgery. (Emphasis in original). The Code of 1819 defines the crime of forgery for any land warrant ...; any paper bill of credit ...; any certificate, manifest or receipt of any public inspector of flour, hemp, tobacco, or other thing; any loan office certificate; certificate of ... stock...; or any record of any court, or public office, or of any body politic or corporate; or any will, testament or codicil; any deed, bond, writing or note; any bill of exchange, draft or order; any assignment, transfer or endorsement; any defeasance, acquittance or receipt; or any letter of credit, or other writing, to the prejudice of another's right.... Va.Code ch. 154, § 4 (1819). Construing this language, the Attorney General asserts that [t]he descriptive phrase `to the prejudice of another's right' appears only in relation to `other writings.'  Campbell believes that [t]he better reading of the 1819 act ... is that in each of its list of objects, forgery requires proof of the element of prejudice, just as forgery of the `other writings' in the residual category also requires proof of prejudice (emphasis in original). We agree with the Attorney General's construction. We think that the purpose of the 1819 Act was to codify the English common law and to preserve its distinctions between forgery of public records and forgery of private documents. In our view, the language to the prejudice of another's right modifies only writings other than those specifically listed by name. Campbell's reading of the language ignores both English common law and this Court's decisions construing that language. In Murry v. Commonwealth, 32 Va. (5 Leigh) 720 (1835), this Court faced the issue whether the Code of 1819 required an allegation of actual prejudice of another's right in an indictment charging forgery of a bank note. We concluded that those words relate, not to the different writings particularly mentioned in the previous part of the section, the counterfeiting of most of which had, long before, been made [a] felony; but only to the words immediately connected with them; any other writing, to the prejudice of another's right. Id. at 723 (emphasis in original); accord Powell v. Commonwealth, 52 Va. (11 Gratt.) 822, 824-25 (1854); Commonwealth v. Linton, 4 Va. (2 Va.Cas.) 476, 478 (1825). [5] Our interpretation of the 1819 statute is reinforced by the content and structure of the forgery sections contained in the Code of 1849. In its revision of the 1819 Code, the General Assembly divided the old statute into six sections. One dealt with public documents generally, one with keeping an instrument to forge the seal of court, one with forgery of official currency, one with the forgery of stamps, and one with forgery of bank notes. Section five alone dealt with forgery of private papers, and only that section required proof of prejudice of another's right. For more than a century, the statutory scheme framed in the Code of 1849 has remained essentially unchanged in form and substance. In every revision made by the General Assembly, prejudice of another's right or equivalent language has been written into only those sections of the forgery statutes defining forgery of private writings. [6] In no revision has any such language been included in those sections defining forgery of public records. [7] Construing the seven sections of the current forgery article literally and strictly, we find that the article emphasizes legislative intent to continue that policy. Code § 18.2-172 provides that [i]f any person forge any writing, other than such as is mentioned in §§ 18.2-168 [public documents] and 18.2-170 [currency], to the prejudice of another's right ... he shall be guilty of a Class 5 felony. Unwilling to acknowledge the design and import of the statutes, Campbell invokes a decision of this Court which he says has for the first (and only) time, decided that prejudice to the rights of another is an element of forgery of public records. He cites Coleman v. Commonwealth, 66 Va. (25 Gratt.) 865 (1874). There, the trial court, which had refused one of the defendant's instructions containing that element, added it to another instruction. The principal question on appeal was whether a warrant book was a public record as defined in other instructions. This Court held that there was no error in giving and refusing the instructions set forth in the first bill of exceptions. Id. at 885. It is true that the opinion commented that the instructions under consideration declare in what consists the forgery of a public record. Id. at 880. However, while this Court held that the harm-or-prejudice issue was preserved at trial, nothing in the opinion suggests that it was raised on appeal by either party. To give the decision in Coleman the interpretation Campbell urges is to assume that this Court ignored the scheme of the Code current at that time and that of all its predecessors, the opinions of this Court in Murry, Powell, and Linton cited above construing the Code of 1819, and the common law of England as pronounced in Ward. We make no such assumption, and to the extent Coleman fairly may be subject to the interpretation Campbell urges, that decision is expressly overruled. We agree with the ruling of the panel of the Court of Appeals affirming the ruling of the trial court that harm or prejudice to the right of another person has never been and is not now an element of the crime of forgery of public records in this Commonwealth. [8] The Court of Appeals sitting en banc upheld those rulings; to that extent, we will affirm its judgment.