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598 P.2d 268

Hixson v. State

Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma · decided 1979-07-27

Relies on Kellogg v. State · Hollie v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1979-07-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently July 2004

4 federal appellate · 1 state decisions

201979198019902000decided

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.

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¶1OPINION

CORNISH, Presiding Judge:

¶2The appellant, Kenneth Hixson, was convicted of Obtaining Money by False Pretenses in the District Court of Pontotoc County, Case No. CRF-78-5. The jury set punishment at a fine of Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00).

¶3In response to this appeal, the Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma has filed notice of confession of error. In that notice, the Attorney General confessed error based upon the demurrable information and insufficiency of the evidence.

¶4Appellant had contracted with several churches in and about Ada, Oklahoma, to take pictures of their members for potential sale to said members and to provide church directories gratis. The photos were taken and deposits and some payments in full were received, but the packets of photographs were not returned within the time promised. In addition to this delay on the appellant’s part, the churches, either through their administrators or individual members, disapproved of the quality of the product.

¶5The crime of Obtaining Money by False Pretenses under 21 O.S.1971, § 1541.1, et al, requires the making of a false statement by one person to another of a past or existing fact with the intent to defraud. Kellogg v. State, Okl.Cr., 551 P.2d 301 (1976). In Kellogg, the crime of Obtaining Property by False Pretenses was not committed by a defendant who promised to return the following day to give a cashier’s check in exchange for the seller’s vehicle. Comparably, appellant Hixson did not commit the crime of Obtaining Money by False Pretenses when he promised to deliver the photo packets within a certain time period in exchange for the buyers’ money. The evidence indicates that the appellant was in business at the time of the transactions; that he did maintain an office in Arkansas; and that he did have a developer in Tennes*269see. No evidence of intent to defraud was presented.

¶6As in Hollie v. State, Okl.Cr., 386 P.2d 333 (1963), any breach of the obligation incurred must be remedied by a civil suit, and the information by which the appellant was charged is demurrable on its face.

¶7REVERSED with instructions to DISMISS.

BRETT and BUSSEY, JJ., concur.
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