Commonwealth v. Rush

Citations

• 78 Pa. Super. 404
• 1922 Pa. Super. LEXIS 128

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Malting check upon insufficient funds — Act of April 18, 1919, P. L. 70 — Evidence—Sufficiency—Ratification—Effect.</p> <p>The offense created hy Act of April 18,1919, P. L. 70, making it a misdemeanor for any person, with intention to defraud, to make or draw or utter or deliver any check, draft or order for payment of money on any bank, or other depository, knowing that the maker had not sufficient funds with such bank for payment of the check, is a new one, and the statute is to be strictly construed.</p> <p>The forbidden act is not a continuing offense. When the making or delivering of the check takes place, the offense is complete.</p> <p>The first fact to be established by the Commonwealth, in a prosecution under the act, is the making or delivery of the check, draft or order.</p> <p>Ratification cannot take the place of participation in the offense which the statute makes necessary.</p> <p>Upon the indictment of defendants, charged with making or drawing a check upon a hank in which they had insufficient funds for its payment, where no evidence was introduced to show that the defendants signed the check, or that they ever heard of it until after the prosecutor came into possession of it, evidence that they ratified the wrong, and tried to procure funds for payment of the cheek was insufficient to sustain a conviction.</p>