Vanvalkenburg v. State
Vanvalkenburg v. State
Opinion of the Court
It is a clear principle of law that you can not indict
It is a well-settled rule of criminal proceedings that, in all statutory offenses, the indictment must pursue the words of the statute substantially in setting out the offense. With us there is no such thing as common-law crimes. The prisoner was indicted for selling and bartering counterfeit bank notes, under section 29 of the act punishing crimes. The proof shows that he uttered and published them as true and genuine, with intent to defraud, which is an offense punishable under section 22 of the same act. Swan’s Stat. 233.
A majority of the court are very clear in the opinion that an indictment, under section 29, for selling, bartering, etc., will not warrant a conviction of the offense specified in section 22 of the act.
The offenses are certainly not identical, or else the legislature performed a work of supererogation in creating them both. The one embraces the case oí uttering and passing, as true and genuine, spurious and counterfeit paper, knowing it to be such, with intent to defraud. The other is where a person *solls, barters, or disposes of spurious bills, as such, not as true and genuine, and without any intent to defraud. In the latter it was designed to punish a person who kept and sold, or disposed of counterfeit bills, to willing purchasers and receivers, who well understood the character of the articles purchased. One' section punishes the person who vends the counterfeit bills to such as wish to purchase the article. The other punishes him who passes them as genuine money, or bank notes, with intent to defraud. Guilty traffic is the essence of one, but of the other, an intent to defraud.
The words of the statute, describing the offenses, are very different, being in the one, “utter and publish, as true and genuine;'” in the other, “to sell, barter, or in any manner to dispose of;” tho legislature have thus defined different offenses, and in different words.
The rules of criminal pleading require the offense to be set out substantially in the words of the statute. The statute contains a definition of the offense. Now, if under an indictment for one offense, you may convict of a distinct and different offense, ;t would
According to the theory of criminal pleading, no one definition of a crime, in an indictment, can contain two distinct offenses, so as to warrant a conviction for either, any more than *by the lavs of matter, two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. Judgment reversed.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting. I am not able to concur in the decision just announced:
1. Because I know of no authority against the correctness of the decision of the court below, and, in the limited research which I have been enabled to make for such authority, I have discovered well-considered cases, which, in my judgment, will sustain it. 15 Mass. 187; 7 Conn. 54; 9 Conn. 259, and cases there cited.
2. The indictment charged, upon the plaintiff in error, the offense of bartering counterfeit paper, knowing it to be such. The statute defines such an offense. The proof established the facts of the guilty knowledge, and the bartering of the paper, by swapping it for Ohio paper, worth, nominally, a less sum in market. This fully made a caseol crime, as defined by the statute, and the proof sustained all the allegations of the indictment. I can not, in tho absence of any authority, and against strong authority, hold that there is any legal principle which would enable a defendant, on trial for such a crime, to defeat the state, by proving, in addition to the facts established against him, that he also intended to defraud his victim. It would have been proving his innocence by establishing a greater degree of moral turpitude, on his part, than that which was alleged against him. It would be like allowing
As I understand the law, the rule is, that in cases where an indictment is fully sustained by the facts in proof, and the facts also disclose that the defendant might, with propriety, have been indicted for a graver offense, it is discretionary with the court to allow a noil, pros., and to discharge the jury, in order to prevent the trial from barring a future prosecution, for the more aggravated offense. 1 Chit. Crim. Law, 637.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Isaac Vanvalkenburg v. The State of Ohio
- Status
- Published