Opinion ID: 2171181
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sufficiency of Allegation

Text: The sufficiency of allegation must be tested upon a presumption that respondent is innocent and has no knowledge of the facts charged against him, State v. Farnham, 119 Me. 541, 544, 112 A. 258, and must have that degree of certainty and precision which (a) will fully inform him of the special character of the charge against which he is called upon to defend, and (b) will enable the Court to determine whether the facts alleged are sufficient in law to constitute an offense so that the record may stand as a protection against further jeopardy. Kerr, supra, 117 Me. at 257, 103 A. at 586. The respondent is accused of feloniously uttering and publishing a certain altered and forged written instrument in violation of Section 1 of Chapter 133, R.S., which provides [w]hoever, with intent to defraud, falsely makes, alters, forges or counterfeits any    written instrument of another, or purporting to be such, by which any pecuniary demand or obligation    is or purports to be created    shall be punished   . Forgery as a crime, and by our statutory definition, includes the acts of falsely making and falsely altering with intent to defraud. The acts of making and altering are not the same. The act of forging, to forge, separate from its legal significance, is to make or imitate falsely; to produce or devise, to fabricate Webster's New International Dictionary 2nd Ed.; to fashion, make, produce, Webster's Third New International Dictionary; to make in the likeness of something else, to counterfeit; State v. McKenzie, 42 Me. 392, 394; DeRose v. The People, 64 Colo. 332, 171 P. 359, 360 [1, 2], L.R.A.1918C, 1193 (1918); Carter v. State, 135 Tex.Cr.R. 457, 116 S.W.2d 371, 376 [6, 7] (1938); Marteney v. United States, 216 F.2d 760, 763 [4] (Ct. of Appeals Tenth Cir. 1954). The act of altering, to alter, is the changing of something already made, produced, or fabricated. As Webster's Third New International Dictionary puts it to cause to become different in some particular characteristic without changing into something else. A person charged with the offense of forgery is entitled to know whether his conduct, which the law criticizes, is that of making or altering. Altering, as such, of an instrument is not necessarily a violation of law. An act of altering may be made in good faith, may be made to correct an error, or to conform the instrument to the truth. This is recognized in 23 Am. Jur., Forgery § 16 et seq. and in State v. Sotak, 100 W.Va. 652, 131 S.E. 706, 708 [2], 46 A.L.R. 1523 (1926); People v. Reichert, 357 Ill. 205, 191 N.E. 220 (1934) and Annot. 93 A.L.R. 864. The nature of the altering to bring it within the definition of forgery must be false altering, State v. Flye, 26 Me. 312, 320, also Whitehouse and Hill, Directions and Forms for Criminal Procedure for the State of Maine p. 103, and the word falsely in the reference statute must be read as modifying alters. The felonious utterance with intent to defraud of an altered instrument may be some offense, but it is not forgery. Unless the indictment necessarily charges the respondent with the violation of the statute, the indictment is insufficient. State v. Maine State Fair Association, 148 Me. 486, 490, 96 A.2d 229. Upon this point an exception is sustained. Having determined that the charge as expressed in the indictment is insufficient we do not have to reach the other points raised, but the practical importance of considering the use of currently available methods of reproducing printed material, the applicability of such methods to criminal pleadings and, if use of such reproductive process is found to be valid, how the reproduced copy may be safely incorporated without offending long established principles of criminal pleading, and the necessity of pleading extrinsic facts in the present case as it may affect future criminal pleading, prompts us to explore these areas.