Marr v. State

Bruíshí, C. J., filed the following dissenting opinion. The instructions in this case leave much to be desired. As a-, statement of the law they failed to set forth the elements of. ⁵¹⁶ the charge which the State was bound to prove (as to which see Willis v. State, 205 Md. 118 , 106 A. 2d 85 ). Not only that, but in explaining the meaning of § 140 of Art. 27 of the Code (1957), the general False Pretense Act, which was the basis of the only counts upon which the case was submitted to the jury, the trial judge clarified its meaning largely by reading from the definition of offenses under § 142, the Worthless Check Act, 1 although he had just directed a verdict of not guilty on the counts based upon that statute.

It is true that, where a bad check is involved, § 140 and § 142 do overlap, and § 142 is broad enough to cover bad checks drawn by someone other than the defendant, who was here named as the drawer under the counts based on § 142. On the other hand, .the trial court had also directed a verdict of not guilty on the counts based on uttering forged checks. There was nothing said in the instructions about the defendant having falsely represented himself as Burke, the specific misrepresentation upon which the court seems to rest its opinion, or specifically about any representation known to the defendant to be false; nor was the jury told that a false representation known to the defendant to be false was an essential ingredient of the offense. Despite the absence of any exception to the charge, this is one of the rare cases in which I would examine the charge under what was Maryland Rule 739 g when this case was tried and argued on appeal (now Rule 756 g), and would reverse and remand the case for a new trial. .

The presumption created by § 143 was not read.