People v. Descant

THOMPSON, Acting P. J.

The defendant was charged and convicted in Sacramento County with drawing, uttering and delivering to Louis Block a check for the sum of $35.28, upon the First National Bank of Merced, in which bank the defendant then had no funds or credit, with the intent to defraud the said Louis Block, contrary to the provisions of section 476a of the Penal Code.

The defendant contends that the Sacramento court was without jurisdiction to try the cause; that the court erred in reopening the case and receiving in evidence the testimony of an officer with respect to the identity of several other fictitious checks which were drawn and uttered by the defendant; that the court erred in receiving in evidence photographs of the payee who passed the checks to Louis Block; that the court erred in permitting the jury to take to their jury room the exhibits which were received in evidence, and that the court erred in giving to the jury an instruction regarding the methods of impeaching witnesses.

The evidence satisfactorily shows that the defendant and E. R. Bartlett, the payee named in the check which was passed to Louis Block, co-operated in fraudulently issuing and passing numerous similar fictitious checks at about the same time, with the purpose of defrauding different merchants. Both men were arrested. The defendant was separately charged with this offense. Neither of them took the witness stand at the trial of this case.

On May 19, 1941, the defendant, as manager of the so-

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called Pacific West Coast Company, opened an account in the First National Bank of Merced, by depositing therein the sum of $117. That fund was exhausted, and the account was finally closed August 15, 1941. No deposit was thereafter made in that account, nor did the defendant negotiate for further credit with the bank. Upon opening his account the defendant was furnished a pad of blank checks, upon each of which there was printed his business card. The checks were consecutively numbered. On September 20, 1941, more than a month after his account had been closed, the defendant drew upon the Merced bank, in his own handwriting, and signed, six different checks, each for the sum of $35.28, which bore the same date and were made payable to E. B. Bartlett. Each check was endorsed by Bartlett and fraudulently passed to different merchants in Sacramento, in payment for goods which he purchased. A portion of the cheeks were paid to Bartlett in cash. One of these checks, numbered 204, was delivered to Louis Block, the manager of the Dundee Clothing Store in Sacramento, on September 26, 1941, in payment for an overcoat. He also received $10 in cash from that check. The defendant was not then present. This last mentioned check was deposited for collection in the Capital National Bank of Sacramento, on September 29, 1941, and promptly forwarded to the Merced bank for payment. The Merced bank refused payment of the check and returned it with the endorsement stamped thereon, “Account Closed.” The other checks, which were exactly like the last mentioned one in date and amount and in every other respect except their serial numbers, ‘were likewise passed by Bartlett to other merchants in Sacramento from whom he purchased goods on or about the same date. They were deposited for collection and forwarded to the Merced bank for payment. Payment on each check was refused, and they were returned with the same endorsement, that the account was closed. Several of these merchants took the witness stand and testified to the respective transactions.