Court Opinion

ID: 9559949
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:39:04.903344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:53.817496
License: Public Domain

Felton, J.,
concurring specially. The indictment on which the defendant was first tried charged him with forging in the first count, and with uttering the same instrument, knowing it to have been forged, in the second. For the sake of clarity, inasmuch as the question whether someone other than the defendant forged the instrument is eliminated, I shall treat the indictment as alleging that the defendant forged the check and uttered the check which he himself forged, because the issues would be the same under the indictment as it is written, if the evidence showed that the defendant uttered the instrument which he also forged.
•The defendant’s contentions in this case are predicated on the proposition that the jury adjudicated in the first trial that the defendant did not as a matter of fact forge the instrument. Whether that is true or not depends on whether two separate and distinct crimes were charged in the indictment, or two grades of one offense. If two crimes were charged, the defendant’s contentions are correct because in that event a verdict of not guilty on the first count meant that the jury had investigated and found on the facts charged in the first count. However, if two grades of the same crime were charged in the indictment, and a conviction was allowable on only one count, a verdict of not guilty on the first count would not mean that *133the defendant was found not to have committed the acts charged therein where the verdict was guilty on the second count, because the verdict of guilty on the second count is consistent with the fact that the defendant did commit the .acts charged in the first count. Since only one crime was charged, a conviction of the greater grade automatically called for an acquittal of the lesser grade of offense. It is settled in my mind that the indictment charged only one crime and charged two grades of the same offense, and there was in reality only one verdict rendered. Thomas v. State, 59 Ga. 784; Long v. State, 12 Ga. 293; Miller v. State, 60 Ga. App. 682 (4 S. E. 2d, 729); Bulloch v. State, 10 Ga. 47 (50 Am. D. 369); Blount v. State, 11 Ga. App. 239 (74 S. E. 1099); 37 C. J. S. 111, § 108; 23 Am. Jur. 698, §51. The rationale of these authorities is that, where an indictment charges the forgery and uttering of the same instrument, only one intent is involved, and there cannot under the law be but one crime if the defendant committed all the acts charged. But regardless of what the law is, if the trial court submitted the case to the jury on the first trial as involving-two separate crimes, and authorized the jury to return a verdict of guilty on both counts, the case as to the defendant would be the same as if the law had authorized the action of the court, because in such a case the jury would have actually adjudicated the facts in finding a verdict of guilty on the first count instead of entering such a verdict as a legal consequence of finding a guilty verdict on the second count. There is no showing by the defendant that the court on the first trial submitted the case as two separate offenses, and the presumption ordinarily would be that the court treated the evidence as showing two grades of the same offense; and it would follow that, when a new trial was granted, the . entire verdict, which was in fact one Under the presumption above, was set aside, and the defendant could not complain that he was being put in jeopardy twice for the same offense when he has had the previous judgment set aside on his own motion. However, under the decision of this court in reversing the first conviction, it is the law of this case that the defendant was tried as for two separate and distinct offenses, one for forging and one for uttering the identical *134check. The judgment in that case could have no other foundation or support.
Since this court has necessarily ruled that the defendant has been tried and acquitted of forging, he cannot be put in jeopardy again for the offense of uttering the same instrument after having forged it, which is a different grade of the same offense of which he was acquitted.