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84 Ark. 136

Mears v. State

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided October 21, 1907

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1907-10-21

Steel, Judge; statement by the court. The grand jury of Tittle River County indicted E. A. Mears for making false entries in the books of a banking corporation as follows: “The grand jury of Little River County, in the name and by the authority of the State of Arkansas, accuse the defendant, E. A. Mears, of the crime of making false entries, committed as follows, viz: The said defendant, in county and State aforesaid, on the 18th day of November, 1904, then and there being…

Relies on Fleener v. State · Whipple v. Tuxworth · Ince v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

reversed · Decided 1907-10-21

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently September 1972

6 state decisions

3019071910192019301940195019601970decided

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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Battue, J.,

¶1(after stating the facts). The indictment was sufficient, unless it be defective because it charged the defendant with two offenses; but this defect, if a defect, was waived by the failure to demur to it on that account. Ince v. State, 77 Ark. 426, 428.

¶2The indictment was based upon the following statute: “Every person who, with the intent to defraud, shall make any false entry, or shall falsely alter any entry made in any book of account by any banking corporation within this State, or in any book kept by such corporation, by which any pecuniary obligation, claim or credit shall be or purport to be discharged, diminished, increased, created, or in any manner affected, shall, on conviction thereof, be punished as for forgery,” which is by imprisonment in the State'penitentiary not less than two years nor more than ten years. Kirby’s Digest, § 1726.

¶3The statute makes an intent to defraud an essential element of the offense charged. Instructions given at the instance of the State numbered 2 and 4, and modifications in instructions numbered 2 and 5, given at the request of the defendant, taken in connection with the instruction numbered 2 given at the instance of the State, made it unnecessary to prove such intent in order to convict, and for that reason were and are fatally defective and prejudicial.

¶4It was sufficient to prove the existence of the corporation mentioned in the indictment to show that there was such a corporation de facto, and evidence of general reputation of its corporate existence is competent to prove it. Section 3084 of Kirby’s Digest; Pleener v. State, 58 Ark. 98, 102. As to what is necessary to constitute a de facto corporation, see Whipple v. Tuxworth, 81 Ark. 391. The name of the corporation as alleged in the indictment may be shown by evidence that it was known by such name. Bennett v. State, ante p. 97.

¶5In view of the evidence in the case and what we have said as to corporations de facto, it is unnecessary to notice instruction numbered 5 and given at the instance of the State, as it was not prejudicial.

¶6Reverse and remand for a new trial.

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