Court Opinion

ID: 9527448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:30:40.952034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:47.477260
License: Public Domain

CATES, Judge.
Miss Christison appeals from a judgment based on a general verdict of guilt on a two count indictment. The .trkd judge sentenced her to five years imprisonment.
*195The two pertinent counts1 are as follows :
“Count One
“The Grand Jury of said County charges that before the finding of this Indictment Helen Christison, alias Helen A. Christison, whose name to the Grand Jury is otherwise unknown than as stated, did, with intent to injure or defraud, alter, forge or counterfeit a certain bank check, which was in substance as follows:
“ ‘General Fund No. 5028^4
Gadsden, Ala. January 23, 1951
Pay to the
order of Clorene C. Hallmark $225.00 Two Hundred Twenty-five and No/100 Dollars
The American National Bank Jan SPR 50-51 Gadsden, Ala.
Helen A. Christison Custodian, Etowah County School Funds
endorsed: Clorene C. Hallmark’
or with the intent to injure or defraud, did utter and publish as true the said falsely altered, forged, or counterfeited bank check, knowing the same to be so altered, forged or counterfeited, contrary to law and against the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama.”
“Count Three
“The Grand Jury of said County further charges that before the finding of this Indictment Helen Christison, alias Helen A. Christison, whose name to the Grand Jury is otherwise unknown than as stated, the Custodian of Etowah County School Funds, and being then and there entrusted with the disbursement of money or funds belonging to the Board of Education of Etowah County, Alabama, did embezzle or convert to her own use, or to the use of another, a bank check in the amount of $225:00, and of the value of $225.00, drawn by the said Helen Christison, alias Helen A. Christison, as Custodian of the Etowah County School Funds, made payable to Clorene G. Hallmark, and drawn on the American National Bank of Gadsden, Alabama, a national banking association chartered by the Federal Government through the office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which said bank check had come into her possession by virtue of her public office or public trust, as aforesaid, contrary to law and against the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama.”
Another count, numbered two, charging embezzlement of $225 of the Board’s money was nol prossed on the defense’s filing pleas of autrefois acquit.
The Hallmark check, according to the State’s evidence, was originally made payable to “Helen Christison — Bookkeeper,” and the reverse was also thus endorsed in pencil. Etowah County Exchange, Inc., was the second endorser. Miss Christi-son’s sister, Edna, worked for the Exchange at that time.
Presumably after the bank paid the check and charged it to Miss Christison’s account as Custodian, the payee’s description was changed to read “Clorene C. Hallmark” as was the endorsement. Clorene C. Hallmark, a teacher on maternity leave without pay in January, 1951, denied that she had written the purported endorsement.
Over defense objection, because of showing other offenses, the trial judge admitted checks (other than the Hallmark check) as bearing on “system,” “intent,” “motive” and “identity.”2 All of them, *196according to the State’s evidence, were forged as were the endorsements; each alteration was of the name of the payee. At the close of the State’s case in chief, the endorsements (including that of the Hallmark check) and the evidence concerning their alteration were confined by the court solely for the jury to consider as bearing on the embezzlement count.
Miss Christison’s brief urges the following points of claimed error: (1) the denial by the court below of her pleas of autrefois acquit; (2) admission of evidence of other forged checks; (3) validity of the Hallmark check; (4) variances and lack of proof as tested against the allegata of count one; (5) admission of opinion testimony; (6) argument of the solicitor; (7) the overruling of demurrers to count one; and (8) the refusal of written charges.
The double jeopardy issue arose from Miss Christison’s acquittal by a petty jury on December 12, 1957, of the charges in a three count indictment presented by the same grand jury which brought in the instant true bill. The grand jury there had accused Miss Christison (a) of forging a $250 custodian check payable to Louis Kirkland, (b) of embezzling $250 currency, and (c) of embezzling the Kirkland check.
Upon the filing of the pleas of autrefois acquit, the solicitor nol prossed count two (embezzlement of $225 currency) of the instant indictment. After proof of the prior acquittal the trial judge gave the jury peremptory instructions in favor of the State.
In view of the State’s nol prossing count two of the indictment, the only substantial question presented by the direction of the verdict on the double jeopardy issue is that raised by the question certified by us to the Supreme Court, i. e., as to whether or not an accusation of embezzlement of a check is the same as one of embezzling money. The Supreme Court’s answer of November 15, 1960, shows the ruling of the trial judge to be correct. See 273 Ala. 1, 142 So.2d 663.
As to the admission in evidence of other forged checks, the rule applied in Mason v. State, 259 Ala. 438, 66 So.2d 557, 42 A.L.R.2d 847 (i. e., prohibiting evidence of other crimes), does not apply here: rather the exception illustrated in the false pretense scheme in Brown v. State, 37 Ala.App. 516, 74 So.2d 273, affirmed 261 Ala. 696, 74 So.2d 277, governs. In McDonald v. State, 83 Ala. 46, 3 So. 305, a forgery case, one purportedly forged note to a merchant was used to show in*197tent to defraud through the utterance of another. Hall v. State, 21 Ala.App. 476, 109 So. 847; McElroy, The Law of Evidence in Alabama (2d Ed.), § 70.11.
That some of the other checks were apparently forged before and after the Hallmark check is unobjectionable. Wright v. State, 138 Ala. 69, 34 So. 1009: order of August 20 admissible on charge of order dated August 7. Smith v. Smith (Fla.) 59 So.2d 625; Annotation 34 A.L.R.2d 777, at 812-13.
State’s Exhibit A, the Hallmark check itself, also had thereon: (a) in longhand —“Correction OK H. A. C.”; (b) the bank’s transit number “61-66”; (c) the 621 words, “Know your endorser require identification”; and (c) in a vertical panel on the left side of the check the words, “General Fund,” a legend also appearing in the horizontal text and set forth in count one, supra.
We consider these variations immaterial. Discrepancies and omissions which do not distort the meaning or distract from the legal efficacy of the instrument are not fatal variances. At 23 Am.Jur., Forgery, § 47, we find:
“ * * * jj. js n0(. necessary to set out marks, ornaments, or marginal figures which form no part of the contract, since they are no part of the forged instrument. Nor is it necessary to state any other matter written on the same, constituting no part of the instrument itself, and not entering into it as an essential description of the instrument. * * * ”
We are not unmindful of the statement in Gayden v. State, 38 Ala.App. 39, 80 So.2d 495, 500, that “the instrument alleged to have been forged must be set out * * * either in haec verba or according to its legal tenor.” However, the forgery there charged was of a prescription of a narcotic drug, a felony under Code 1940, T. 22, § 255, as amended by Act No. 306, July 27, 1951. No provision was made for a short form indictment for that offense.
 Also, without juggling the semantical nuances of “haec verba” and “ipsissima verba,” we note that the former of these expressions does not call for all the words but merely requires accuracy in the words which are used. See McDaniel v. State, 20 Ala.App. 407, 102 So. 788. Even that rigidity may be relaxed where, as here, the indictment (which follows Code 1940, T. 15, § 259, No. 63) uses the expression “in substance as follows.”
Defense counsel point out that the alteration of the Hallmark check took place after the check had been paid, stamped and cancelled by perforation. Hence, it is argued, the instrument was functus officio, as it were, and no longer a check. Its demise as a negotiable instrument, it is argued, produced a fatal variance between charge and proof.
Under Hamilton v. State, 35 Ala.App. 570, 50 So.2d 449, it was held that first, second and third degree forgery each is a distinct offense, rather than a degree of one inclusive crime of three degrees. This distinction, however, is not important here because the word check can describe an instrument the subject of either first or second degree forgery. Earlier when it was necessary under Benson v. State, 124 Ala. 92, 27 So. 1, to prove the incorporation of a national bank,3 it was nevertheless held that an indictment in Code form for first degree forgery could charge second degree forgery because the check was also “a bill of exchange.” See Wyatt v. State, 257 Ala. 90, 57 So.2d 366.
So, too, where the forgery is shown to have given the cancelled check a new *198operation, i. e., as a receipt for the payment 'of money purportedly the act of another, 'Clorene C. Hallmark, the altered payee, the charge of count one is valid because that instrument was not only a check but also a voucher whereunder Miss Christison feigned to charge herself. Thus, in Nix v. State, 20 Okl.Cr. 373, 202 P. 1042, 1044, 26 A.L.R. 1053, we find:
“It is contended by the defendant that after the $6 check in controversy was delivered to Minnie McCoy and by her indorsed and cashed, and the canceled check returned to the defendant, this canceled check, bearing her signature and indorsement, had then spent its force as an order to pay money, was ‘functus officio/ was evidence of no obligation between the parties, and therefore not subject to a penalty for forgery by way of alteration. This was all true, in so far as the instrument related to an order to pay money, but after its payment and the return of the instrument to the defendant, with the signature and indorsement of his ward, it then had another function- — it was then a receipt or acquittance from the ward to the defendant, as guardian, for money which he could plead payment of in an action in assumpsit against him by the - ward; and when the defendant, for a fraudulent purpose, changed the amount of this receipt or acquittance from $6 to $60, with the intent and for the purpose of filing the same as a voucher from his ward in his final settlement with her and taking credit for the larger amount, such alteration, in our opinion, constituted forgery.
“Under the circumstances here, the instrument was originally the instrument and writing of the defendant, but after it had performed its function as an order to pay money it seems clear to us that it then became the receipt or acknowledgment ‘of another/ in this case the ward, for the payment
of money received by her; it then became her receipt, the fraudulent alteration of which would constitute forgery.
“From the reference books and reports we find that it is well settled that a receipt is the subject of forgery provided it would operate as the foundation of another’s liability or be prejudicial to his rights, if genuine. Any change in such an instrument which alters its legal effect or makes it speak in a substantial matter a different legal language, and causes any obligation to be increased, diminished, or discharged, is forgery. 19 Cyc. 1381; 12 R.C.L. 147; Wharton’s Crim. Law, §§ 885-887.
“In the case of Gordon v. Commonwealth, 100 Va. 825, 41 S.E. 746, 57 L.R.A. 744, appears this language:
“‘To add to a canceled check the words "in full of account to date” with intent to alter its effect as a receipt, constitutes forg'ery. * * * The addition to a check of the words “in full of account to date” may constitute forgery if made at any time after the check is delivered to the payee.’
“A returned check, marked ‘Paid/ according to business usage and custom and common understanding constitutes a valid receipt from the person indorsing the check and receiving payment. Such being its function and legal effect, where the receipt or voucher has been raised or altered, to the injury of the maker of the receipt, it may be the subject of forgery. As to the character of an instrument which may he the subject of forgery, it must be such that if it were genuine it would have some apparent legal efficacy. It must be one which would work some prejudice to another, affecting his person or property rights; one which, from its nature and the course of business, might deceive or mislead, to the prejudice of another. * * * ”
*199In addition to the Gordon case cited in Nix, see also Bunker v. State, 77 Tex.Cr. R. 38, 177 S.W. 108.
We hold that proof of alteration of .the name of the payee of a cancelled bank check is not a variance from an indictment charging forgery of the check. We consider it not needful for the grand jury to have averred by innuendo that the check was a receipt when endorsed. Cf. Williams v. State, 90 Ala. 649, 8 So. 825.
The claimed errors with respect to the admission of opinion evidence as to Miss Christison’s signature and handwriting by non-experts are refuted because (a) there was no objection and (b) the witnesses were shown to be familiar with the signatures and handwriting.
The transcript of evidence shows that at the outset of the trial the defense objected to part of the solicitor’s opening statement:
“Now some mention has been made of other indictments * * *
■ The trial judge overruled saying:
-“Yes, but you put in the same thing. You mentioned it so I think that is in reply.”
Defense counsel had alluded to “the theory that they indicted her sixteen different times on.” We see no error in the ruling.
Since count one was in Code form, the court was correct in overruling the demurrers. See Howard v. State, 20 Ala.App. 398, 102 So. 491.
The written charges were all affirmative in effect and the trial judge properly refused to give them to the jury.
We have carefully considered the entire record as we are required by the provisions of Code 1940, T. 15, § 389, and have come to the conclusion that the judgment appealed from is due to be
Affirmed.

. The defense demurred to count one and assigned inter alia: (a) failure to aver, that the cheek was on an incorporated hank; (b) that as a matter of law a person cannot forge his own bank check. Upon the court’s overruling the demurrers, the defendant plead autrefois acquit.

. One of these cheeks (No. 2934) furnished the clearest circumstantial illustration of the scheme used by Miss Christison. Miss Christison had it made, out payable to herself for $225. ' It was negotiated through The Hirst National-Bank of Birmingham where the face of it was microfilmed. A photograph *196made from the microfilm was introduced in evidence, State’s Exhibit 15.
The records of the County Board of Education contained a cancelled custodian’s check (State’s Exhibit 9) on which “2934” as printed was crossed out and “3137A” was substituted with pen and ink. The payee, obviously typed over an erasure, now reads “Dugger Book Store, Broad St. City.”
The first endorsement, also over an erasure, appears on Exhibit 9 as “Dugger Book Store” followed on the line below by “O. C. Dugger.” Mr. Eugene Dugger, who had Dugger’s Book Store on Broad Street, Gadsden, testified that only Miss Christison ever addressed him as “O. C.” After examining Exhibit 9 he denied the endorsement as his.
Beneath the purported Dugger endorsement appears “Pay to the order of First National Bank Birmingham, Alabama Harvey Ragland Co. Inc.-993.”
Then followed stamped endorsements of that bank (under date of January 18, 1951) and of the Birmingham Branch of The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
An assistant cashier of The First National Bank of Birmingham, who had previously identified the photostat of the face of the check as originally made out (Exhibit 15), produced a deposit slip (State’s Exhibit 27) given to that bank by the Harvey Ragland Co., Inc., on January 18, 1951, whereon appeared an entry “61-66 Heraen A Christian 225.00.” (Italics added.) The notation “61-66,” which also appears on the upper right hand corner of the cheek, the witness identified as the number of The American National Bank of Gadsden.

. Modified by Act No. 1009 of March 4, 1901 (Acts 1900-1901, p. 2285), now Code 1940, T. 15, § 315. Our courts take judicial notice that national ■ banks are corporations. Adler v. First National Bank of Birmingham, 233 Ala. 325, 171 So. 904; Campbell v. State, 29 Ala.App. 343, 195 So. 775.