People v. Imamura

[433]

JAMES, J.

Defendant was charged with and convicted of the crime of forgery. The appeal is from the' judgment of imprisonment which followed, and an order denying a motion for a new trial.

A Japanese, named Maeshima, in the year 1913, was employed at a railway eating house in the county of San Bernardino. Appellant here was a fellow-employee and was acquainted with Maeshima. Maeshima had on deposit with the Yokohama Specie Bank at San Francisco a sum of money amounting to $504.49, evidence of which deposit he held in the form of a pass-book. In November of that year the appellant wrote a letter in Japanese characters to the San Francisco bank to which he signed the name of Maeshima, stating in the letter that the pretended writer was ill and required the money which he had on deposit there and requesting that it be forwarded to him at The Needles, giving a post-office box number to which the letter requested the money to be sent. In due time the bank forwarded a check payable to Maeshima for the amount of the deposit, which cheek was received by appellant and the registry receipt was signed by him with the name of Maeshima. The check was thereafter presented to a branch of the same bank in the city of .Los Angeles and cashed. Appellant, when he testified at the trial, admitted that he had written the letter requesting the money to be forwarded in Maeshima’s name; admitted that he had signed the name of Maeshima to the registry receipt and that he had also indorsed the same name upon the back of the check. He denied having presented the check for payment, and attempted to excuse himself for his acts by saying that he did all of the things enumerated at the suggestion of one Sato, who represented to him that he had the right to draw this money, as it belonged to him, Sato. The check when cashed bore the indorsement of the name “Maeshima” spelled in two ways. The first signature, the one which appellant admitted having written, was spelled “Mayeshima,” 'which did not correspond to the payee’s name appearing in the body of the check, which was “Maeshima.” The evidence tended to show that the second indorsement of Maeshima on the back of the check was made at the suggestion of the bank when the money was paid’on the instrument. An expert on. handwriting gave it as his opinion that the same hand had written all of the indorsements on the back of the check. There was the further