People v. Pomeroy

Headnote

Counterfeit Notes.

Noah Pomeroy was tried upon an indictment containing four counts, for having in his possession certain forged and counterfeit bank bills, with intent to pass the same, and also for having uttered them, knowing them to be forged. It came out in testimony, that the police of our city despatched two of their officers, Messrs. Hays, senior, and Homans, in pursuit of the prisoner on the evening of the 13th of October. They found him in Harmanstreef; and as they seized him, they distinctly saw him, by the light of the moon, drop from his hand a paper, which he .attempted to tread upon, containing four counterfeit bank bills of the Eagle Bank in New Haven, which were set forth in the indictment. No evidence was offered* of any attempt on the part of the prisoner to utter the bills in question, and the counts which related to his having them in possession, with intent to pass, constituted the only issue; and for proof of this the District Attorney rested upon the testimony of Messrs. Hays and Homans.

Messrs. Price and M'Ewen, of counsel for the prisoner, took an exception to the indictment, on the ground that the bills therein set forth were charged to be forged and counterfeit, with intent to defraud the President, Directors and Company of the Eagle Bank. The bills

produced in evidence were imitations of the bills issued in the name of the President, Directors and Company of the Eagle Bank in the city of New Haven.” A Bank *s a k°dy politic, and can be known only by its corporate name; any thing more or less than its baptismal desription contained in its charter is a defect which no testimony nor averment can supply. The words, “ in the city of New Haven,” being therefore a part of its corporate name, were essential in the indictment, and their omission was fatal: There might be other banks in the United States by the name of the Eagle Bank, and if this were the only necessary description, the indictment might aim at one set of bills, and the testimony might support it by proof of another. To lay the act complained of with an intent to defraud persons unknown, would be good; but' to lay it with intent to defraud a body corporate, designated by a name unknown to the statute which created it, was a course unauthorized either by principle or precedent.

Mr. Maxwell, District Attorney, contended, that, if the indictment was laid with a certainty which in legal parlance is denominated “ certainty to a common intent,” it was sufficient. The gravamen of the case was not the rights acquired by the bank under their charter, but the fraud practised upon the public by the prisoner at the bar. If the rights or duties of the bank were specifically at issue, the objection might be good, but here the great point was whether the individual named had been guilty of the crime which it was the intention- of the statute to guard against and punish.