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55 Ga. 659

Pearson v. State

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided January 15, 1876

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1876-01-15

<p>I. On the question whether the prisoner knew a certain grant uttered by him was impressed with a forged and counterfeit great seal, it was error to charge the jury, “ that if the evidence showed he was a land-trader that was a circumstance they had a right to look to, as a land-trader who handled a thousand grants would be more likely to know a counterfeit grant and seal than a man who only occasionally saw one ” — there being no evidence that the prisoner had ever seen any grant except the one uttered, and no evidence that he was a land-trader, except that he sold the tract to which that grant purported to apply, and the further testimony of the purchaser, that he regarded him as a land-trader but did not positively know his business.</p> <p>2. Neither the existence of a genuine grant, nor the public record of it, is evidence that the utterer of a forged grant, bearing a different date, and purporting to convey the same tract of land from the state to a person other than the utterer, knew that the forged grant was a forgery, it not appearing that he had any knowledge, information or belief, touching the genuine grant or its record. Constructive notice by a public record is no substitute for actual notice in establishing the scienter requisite to criminal intention.</p>

Decided 1876-01-15

Bleckley, Judge.

¶11. What the witness said in reference to land-trader was not enough to amount either to a fact, or to an opinion with a reason for it. That he regarded the prisoner as a land-trader,-should not have weighed with t,he jury in the least. It was absolutely irrelevant and worthless. It was no legal basis for any charge from the court on the subject whatever, much less would it justify the example, put for illustration, of a trader who “handled a thousand grants.”

¶22. That there was a genuine grant, with a record of it in the proper office, did not go to charge the prisoner with *662knowledge that the spurious grant he uttered was a forgery, unless there had been evidence tending to show the further fact, that he had some actual knowledge, information, or belief, that the former grant, or the record of it, was, or had been, in existence. A person cannot be convicted of a crime by bare construction. If a man marry another man’s wife, and is indicted for it, can the jury infer that he knew of her former marriage because it was duly recorded and the public record of it was accessible to his diligence? Surely not. The people are not required to search the archives of the state at the peril of being presumed to know all they contain.

¶3Judgment reversed.

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