Court Opinion

ID: 9772342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:15:04.315955+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:43.628749
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the reversal of this case for the reasons assigned by my brother Morrison, Presiding Judge.
There is, however, in my opinion, a far more compelling reason for reversing the conviction than that assigned: The facts are insufficient to support this conviction and the reversal should be predicated upon that error.
The reasons for that statement follow:
The indictment alleged that the check was a forgery because the name of the payee, Barbara H. Kenyon, had been endorsed upon the back of a genuine check of Braniff Airways, Incorporated, and that appellant passed the forged check to Madeline Swor, knowing that the endorsement was forged.
Under such allegations it was the burden of the state to prove that the endorsement was a forgery and that appellant knew it was a forgery when she passed the check to Madeline Swor.
The state proved by Mrs. R. W. Louis, who at the time of the alleged offense was Barbara H. Kenyon, that she had not endorsed her name on the check. The witness further testified that Brainiff Airways was neither indebted to nor owed her the amount for which the check was drawn. Thus was it shown that someone forged the endorsement.
In order to convict appellant it was the burden of the state not only to prove that the endorsement was a forgery but that *327appellant knew it was a forgery when she passed the check. Feeney v. State, 58 Texas Cr. Rep. 152, 124 S.W. 944.
How did the state make proof of appellant’s knowledge? The state took the position that appellant knew the endorsement was a forgery because she forged it. To sustain such position the state proved that knowledge on the part of appellant by the witness Martin, a handwriting expert from the Texas Department of Public Safety, who, after an examination of the allegedly forged endorsement with known and established specimens of appellant’s handwriting, expressed the opinion that appellant forged the endorsement.
Other than the testimony of the expert there is no evidence in this case that appellant forged the endorsement.
When the case was called for trial, appellant filed her sworn affidavit denying “that the signature, Barbara H. Kenyon, alleged to have been forged in the above entitled and numbered cause was signed or forged by her or made under her authority.”
As we held in Caldwell v. State, 158 Texas Cr. Rep. 24, 252 S.W. 2d 941, the filing of such an affidavit invoked the provisions of Art. 731, C.C.P., which reads as follows:
“Evidence of handwriting.
“It is competent to give evidence of handwriting by comparison, made by experts or by the jury. Proof by comparison only shall not be sufficient to establish the handwriting of a witness who denies his signature under oath.”
That statute is directly controlling here, under the facts. See: Davis v. State, 164 Texas Cr. Rep. 173, 297 S.W. 2d 845.
The provisions of the statute have not been met, here.
To affirm this conviction under the facts would be either to destroy that statute or wholly ignore it. This court may not lawfully do either.