People v. King

HART, J.

The defendant was by information filed in the superior court of Sacramento County charged with the crime of drawing, uttering, and delivering to the Zemansky Brothers, a partnership doing business in the city of Sacramento, a cheek for the sum of $1,450 on the First National Bank of Tuba City in Sutter County, knowing that he (said defendant) did not at that time have sufficient funds on deposit or credit with said bank to meet or satisfy said check, the information alleging that said check was issued and so delivered by said defendant with the intent to defraud said Zemansky Brothers. (Sec. 476a, Pen. Code.)

[675]

The defendant was convicted of the crime as charged and prosecutes this appeal from the judgment of conviction and the order denying his motion for a new trial.

The appeal was regularly placed upon the calendar of the September term of this court for hearing and the defendant regularly notified by the clerk of this court of that fact. No brief has been filed for or on behalf of the defendant and he was not present or represented at the time the case was called for oral argument. On motion of the attorney-general the case was submitted upon the record. We have examined the record with care and have discovered no reason why the judgment and the order appealed from should not be sustained.. The evidence shows that the check referred to was delivered by the defendant to the Zemansky Brothers as in payment for a diamond ring; that the defendant neither at the time the check was issued and so delivered (the twelfth day of February, 1923) nor within the period of six months prior or within a period of two months subsequent thereto had money on deposit in said bank with which said check could have been paid or any credit therewith or any agreement whereby the bank was to protect and take care of any checks he might thereupon draw. Indeed, the defendant himself admitted that he drew and delivered the check to the Zemansky Brothers and that neither then nor at any other time did he have any money in the bank or any arrangement or understanding with the officers thereof that they would cash any cheek that he might draw on said bank. He stated, however, that he had sufficient money due him from other people which he intended to deposit in the bank on the day following that upon which he issued the check. He testified that on the evening of the day upon which he delivered the check to the Zemansky Brothers he suffered a nervous breakdown and that as a result thereof he became mentally so aberrated that he did not realize any acts that he did or movements that he made until several days thereafter, when, upon the restoration of his normal mental condition, he found himself in the town of Calexico, in Imperial County, near the Mexican line.