Goodson v. State

Citations

• 29 Fla. 511

Syllabus

<p>UTTERING FORGED INSTRUMENT — FALSE PERSONATION — INDICTMENT-PRESENTATION^ IN OPEN COURT.</p> <p>1. An indictment charging the utterance and publishing of a forged instrument, should state the name of the person, firm, corporation or company to or upon whom the same was uttered, published or passed ; or else it should account for the omission by a statement in the indictment that such person, etc., is to the jurors unknown ; if it fails to do either it is fatally defective.</p> <p>2. An indictment charging the procurement of property by falsely personating another, under section 41, page 364, McClellan’s Digest, should allege that the property fraudulently obtained by the defendant was intended by the party from whom he got it to be delivered to the party alleged to have been' falsely personated ; and should further allege that the defendant received the property with intent to convert the same to his own use. If either or both of these material averments are omitted from such an indictment, it is fatally defective.</p> <p>8. The only recognized manner in which the findings of a grand jury can be authoritatively presented is in open court; and such presentment should be .affirmatively shown by a record entry in the minutes of the court, or else by the file endorsement on the indictment itself by the clerk of the court, showing that it was “ presented by the grand jury and filed in open court.” The record.entry m the minutes is, however, the best and proper evidence of the fact. Where there is no evidence of such open court presentment, a plea in abatement predicated upon such omission should be sustained.</p>