Court Opinion

ID: 9830348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:08:11.434713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:19.967003
License: Public Domain

HEHDERSOH, Judge.
Appellant was convicted of swindling, and his punishment assessed at confinement in the penitentiary for a term of two years; hence this appeal.
What purports to be a statement of facts found in the record does *332not appear to have been approved by the judge who tried the case; consequently we can not consider it.
Appellant made a motion to quash the indictment on the ground that it failed to charge the offense of swindling. He contends that article 948, Penal Code, under which the indictment is drawn, makes the conversion of property merely the offense, when articles 943 and 944 in the same chapter, which define the offense of swindling, require that the property must be acquired in the first instance by some fraudulent pretense. We quote said article 948 as follows: “If any executor, administrator, or guardian having charge of any estate, real, personal or mixed, shall unlawfully, and with intent to defraud any creditor, heir, legatee, ward or distributee, interested in such estate, convert the same, or any part thereof, to his own use, he shall be deemed guilty of the offense of swindling.” It must be conceded that this article eliminates an essential element of the offense of swindling, as defined in the preceding-articles of said chapter. That is, all of the authorities hold that, in order to constitute the offense of swindling, as defined in said articles, the property must be acquired in the first instance by some fraudulent or deceitful pretense or representation, and that the indictment must set out the false pretenses or representations. White’s Ann. P. C., sec. 1639, sub. 4; French v. State, 14 Texas Crim. App., 76; Blum v. State, 20 Texas Crim. App., 578.
Furthermore, appellant contends, in this connection, that article 34, Penal Code, requires "that every offense must be defined, and that the definition of the offense, as constituted under article 948, contravenes the definition of swindling, as found in the preceding articles, in that no false pretenses need be resorted to to acquire the property; but that, if one of the enumerated trustees shall convert the property of the heir, etc., he shall be guilty—making the guilt of such person depend solely on conversion of property that may have come to.his hands.
The act as to swindling appears to have been passed in 1858, and article 948 was a part of the original act, and was embodied along with the other articles in the several epdes that have been passed since that time. So that it does not occur to us that it is a matter that can be considered under the caption of the original bill; and is simply a question as to whether or not the Legislature was authorized to make conversion by a guardian of the trust funds of his ward the offense of swindling—having previously defined what constituted swindling and given it an essential element not contained in said article 948. We know of but one case decided under said article, and that is Moody v. State, 24 Texas Crim. App., 458. But the question here presented was not raised in that case.
We are now asked for the first time to pass on the legality of the article with reference to the preceding definition. Undoubtedly, under the definition of 'swindling, as given in articles 943 and 944, the mere conversion of funds by a guardian would not constitute the offense of swindling, but rather, under our view, be embezzlement; yet we know oh *333no authority which would inhibit the Legislature from creating or making the conversion by a guardian of the funds of his ward swindling, and punish it as such, independent of the preceding subdivisions defining swindling, and notwithstanding said article does not embrace an essential ingredient contained in the preceding definition. It appears that they did make it an offense, and it is so written in plain terms. We hold that the indictment is correctly framed under said article, and charges the offense of swindling named therein. Accordingly, the court did not err in refusing to quash the indictment. In the absence of the statement of facts, we can not review the charge of the court. There being no errors pointed out by the assignments requiring a reversal, the judgment is affirmed.

Affirmed.