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124 Ala. 92

Benson v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1899

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1899-11-15

Tried before Hon. A. D. Saybe.' Tlie defendant was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary, for forgery. He sued out the writ of habeas corpus to test the validity of the judgment of conviction. ' His contention was that' the indictment agdinst him was for forgery in the first degree and that the verdict ivas “guilty as charged in the indictment!7 and the sentence was for only thirty months, when the lowest sentence in first degree forgéry is ten years.

Relies on Kirby v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1899-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently November 1973

8 state decisions

20189919001910192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

SI-IABPE, J.

¶1— Without an averment that “The Farley National Bank-of Montgomery, Ala.,” the draAvee of the forged check, was an “incorporated bank.or banking company” the indictment under which the petitioner Avas convicted charged forgery only in the second degree. Code § § 4719, 4720.

¶2The fact of the draAvee bank’s incorporation being a necessary element in the higher degree of forgery the lade of its averment is not supplied by a mere presumption of its corporate existence arising from the name used to designate the draAvee, since such presumption, if any exists, is not a conclusive one.

¶3On the collateral inquiry raised by habeas corpus proceedings it Avas not permissible to go behind the judgment and shoAv by proof addressed to the merits of the cause that the defendant Avais improperly convicted. Kirby v. State, 62 Ala. 51.

¶4The verdict finding the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment, Avas an ascertainment that he aauis guilty of forgery in the second degree, and the sentence and judgment folloAving the verdict in that respect were proper. The judgment appealed from will be affirmed.

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