Commonwealth v. Snyder

Citations

• 40 Pa. Super. 485
• 1909 Pa. Super. LEXIS 634

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Conspiracy—Public officers — Auditor general — State contract.</p> <p>1. When two or more persons pursue by their acts the same object, often by the same means, one performing one part of an act, the other another part of the same act, with a view to complete it, and with a view to attaining the object which they are pursuing, the acts of each must necessarily be proved separately, and where there is a charge of conspiracy the acts of each, with regard to the subject-matter of the charge, are always evidence against that particular defendant.</p> <p>2. On the trial of an indictment against a contractor, an architect, the auditor general and two other state officers, for conspiracy, in a matter of a contract for supplying furniture for the State Capitol, the commonwealth may offer evidence as against the auditor general that the latter had drawn particular warrants for the contractor before the architect had furnished any certificates and had taken such warrants to the office of the architect and had procured certificates from him for amounts corresponding to the warrants; and this is the case although the architect had secured a severance and was not on trial with the other defendants.</p> <p>3. In such a case the commonwealth may also show that the architect had signed certificates in blank which could be used by the defendants while he was absent in Europe.</p> <p>4. On the trial of such an indictment where the auditor general contends all through the trial that he as a member of the board of commissioners of public grounds and buildings, and, also, as auditor general, relied upon the certificate of the architect as to the correctness of the bills rendered by the contractor for furniture supplied, evidence is admissible to show the manner in which the auditor general had dealt with the certificates of the architect, had directed the change in the form thereof, and how he had dealt with the architect in reference to such certificates. All such evi