People v. Nishiyama (1902) · DecisionDepot

People v. Nishiyama

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Supreme Court Jan 2, 1902 No. Crim. No. 776.Published

Before: Gray

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Holding. The court held that the information was sufficient to charge the crime of passing a fictitious check and that the defendant's intent to commit forgery did not preclude a conviction for passing a fictitious instrument if the act committed met the statutory requirements of the latter.

Issues

Whether the information was defective for failing to negative the possibility that the name on the check belonged to a corporation or copartnership.
Whether the defendant could be convicted of passing a fictitious instrument if he intended to commit forgery.
Whether the jury instruction defining 'uttering' was erroneous.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“It was not necessary to negative so remote a possibility.”

“He may have intended the one crime and committed the other.”

“If the name is that of a fictitious person, it is no defense that the defendant intended to write the name of a particular person well known in the community.”

Synopsis

The facts are stated in the opinion.

GRAY, C.

The appellant was convicted of the crime of passing, uttering, and publishing a fictitious check, which

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crime is defined in section 476 of the Penal Code: He appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

1. The information charges that the defendant “did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, falsely, and fraudulently make, pass, utter, and publish, with intention to defraud the Security Savings Bank, a banking corporation, T. E. Dobbins, and J. S. Brawan, a certain fictitious check, which then and there purported to be the cheek of one J. S. Brawan, a person and individual, which said check was then and there in words and figures following, to wit:—

“ ‘Los Angeles, Cal., Dec. 11, 1900. No: 45.

“ ‘Security Savings Bank:

“ ‘Pay to the order of Frank Nishiyama, $30.00 Thirty Dollars. J. S. Bkawan.’

”

“And which said check . . . was indorsed on the back thereof as follows, ‘Prank Nishiyama’; when, in fact, there was then and there no such person and individual in existence as the said J. S. Brawan, he, the said Prank Nishiyama, then and there well knowing the said check to be fictitious,” etc.

It is objected to this information that it fails to negative the presumption that there might have been a bank, corporation, or copartnership by the name of J. S. Brawan. It was not necessary to negative so remote a possibility. The name itself purports to be that of an individual, and not that of either a corporation or copartnership; and the fact that corporations and copartnerships are, in rare instances, so deceptively named that they cannot be distinguished from individuals by their name alone does not affect the question. The information was evidently drawn with a careful regard for the language of the opinion in

People

Eppinger,

105 Cal. 39. This case is cited by appellant himself, and the opinion therein is unquestionably sound. On the authority of it, we do not hesitate to say that the information herein was not open to the objection here urged.

People v. Nishiyama

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Synopsis

GRAY, C.

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