State v. Daniel
State v. Daniel
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
In deciding whether the Circuit Court was in error in refusing to direct a verdict for a total failure of evidence to sustain the charge made in the indictment all the testimony must be taken most strongly against the defendants. Viewing the evidence in that way, these facts appear: The prosecutor, Mrs. Looper, in July, 1907, at the suggestion of the defendant, Oulla, turned over to him the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars to be used in a furniture business in which both the defendants were interested. When testify- *312 i'ng as to the arrangement under which this money was held, Mrs. Looper said the defendants were to pay her “ten per cent, and so much profit on what they made.” This statement admits of no other meaning than that Mrs. Looper, when she turned over the money to Oulla, parted with the title to the money as well as its possession, for otherwise Oulla could not have earned the ten per cent, and share of the profits which he had contracted to pay to Mrs. Looper for the use of the money. It is true that O'ulla testified that Mrs. Looper did not determine how the money should be disposed of until 1st January, 1908. But it is perfectly clear that he did not mean by this to contradict Mrs. Looper in her statement that he was to use the money and pay her for the use from the time he received it.
There is not a particle of evidence that there was any false pretense or representation on the part of either of the defendants inducing Mrs. Looper to turn the money over to Oulla in July, 1907. On the contrary it is manifest from the record, indeed, it was so stated by counsel for the State, that the charge of obtaining money on false pretenses, as made in the indictment, must stand or fall on a transaction by the defendants with Mrs. Looper, which took place long afterwards — that is, on the first day of January, 1908.
Mrs. Looper testified that the defendants, on the first day of January. 1908, represented to her that the business “was a good paying business and all right;” “that it was a paying business, and had been paying one hundred dollars a week;” that one-third of it was worth $2,700> and by these representations induced her to purchase a third interest at that price. The purchase price, $2,713.54:, according to the contract was made up by the cancellation of the debt of $2,500', due either by O'ulla or by Oulla and Daniel to Mrs. Looper, and by her obligation for the remainder.
No money passed in this transaction, and it is, therefore, impossible to sustain the conviction of obtaining money under false pretenses. Mrs. Looper had long before parted *313 with her money in a transaction which we must assume, in the absence of any testimony to the contrary, to have been fair; and when she was induced to purchase a one-third interest in the business, she had in the place of the money only the debt due to her for it. There was not even evidence that the money was in the hands of the debtor or debtors, or in a bank to their credit. On the contrary, the evidence leaves no doubt that if Mrs. Eooper had demanded payment in money, neither Oulla nor Oulla and Daniel could have paid it except by negotiating a loan.
It is elementary that proof of the larceny of a note or other obligation given for money will not support a conviction under an indictment charging the larceny of money. So also it is manifest that the difference between a debt or obligation for money and the money itself is so substantial that proof of the obtaining of the satisfaction of the debt by false pretenses will not sustain a conviction under an indictment charging the obtaining of money by false pretenses.
In Hunt v. State, 72 Ark., 241, 79 S. W., 769, 105 Am. St., 34, 65 I,. R. A., 71, proof of obtaining a check on which the bank paid the money was held to be not a fatal variance in a trial for obtaining money under false pretenses. In that case the Court well says: “It would be carrying a technicality to a most dangerous extreme to hold that proof of the mere instrumentalities of obtaining the money constituted a variance with the charge of obtaining the money itself, where the same evidence also showed the fact of obtaining the money itself.” The same principle was applied in People v. Lammerts (N. Y.), 58 N. E., 22; Schaumloeffel v. State (Md.), 62 Atl., 803; People v. Hoffmann (Mich.), 105 N. W., 838; State v. Palmer (Kan.), 20 Pac., 270; State v. Gibson (Ia.), 106 N. W., 270. But all these cases rest on the ground that as an xdtimate fact the money was obtained, the check being only a means of obtaining it.
*314 We think no authority can be found which holds that the charge of obtaining money by false pretenses is sustained by proof of obtaining the satisfaction of a debt by the false representation of the value of the property given in satisfaction. On the contrary, the doctrine is laid down in Bishop on Criminal Law, sec. 394, that merely getting credit on a debt is not obtaining property under false pretenses within the meaning of the statute.
As the judgment must be reversed because of this fatal variance between the offense charged in the indictment and the evidence offered, consideration of the other exceptions is unnecessary.
The judgment of this Court is that the judgment of the Circuit Court be reversed.
Reference
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- State v. Daniel.
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- 1. Appeal. — In a criminal case, the doubt whether an important point was made in a motion to dirert a verdict will be solved in favor of defendant. 2. Charge op obtaining money by false pretenses is not sustained by proof of obtaining the satisfaction of an obligation for money used in a mercantile business at a certain per cent, by the sale of an interest in the business by falsely representing the value of the business.