UNITED STATES
v.
CARLL

U.S. | 1881-10-01
105 U.S. 611 Supreme Court of the United States (1881) Negative Treatment
Also reported at: 26 L. Ed. 1135 · 1881 U.S. LEXIS 2164 · SCDB 1881-195
Cited by 342 cases

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Synopsis

In a prosecution for uttering forged obligations of the United States, the Supreme Court held that an indictment must explicitly allege that the defendant knew the instrument was forged and counterfeit, as knowledge is an essential element of the crime, and merely reciting the statutory language without alleging this fact is insufficient to charge a criminal offense. The Court established that indictments must set forth all elements necessary to constitute an offense with certainty, and cannot rely on courts inferring legislative intent from statutes read in light of common law.

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Opinion of the Court
Mr. Justice Gray,

Mr. Justice Gray,

after stating the ease, delivered the opinion of the court.

In an indictment upon a statute, it is not, sufficient to set forth the offence in the words of the statute, unless those words of themselves fully, directly, and expressly, without any uncertainty or ambiguity, set forth all the elements necessary to constitute the offence intended to be-punished; and the fact that the statute in question, read in the light of the common law, and of other statutes on the like matter, enables the court to infer the intent of the legislature, does not dispense with the necessity of alleging in the indictment all the facts necessary to bring the case within that intent. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542; United States v. Simmons, 96 id. 360; Commonwealth v. Clifford, 8 Cush. (Mass.) 215; Commonwealth v. Bean, 11 id. 414; Commonwealth v. Bean, 14 Gray (Mass.), 52; Commonwealth v. Filburn, 119 Mass. 297.

The language of the statute on which this indictment is founded includes the'case of every person, who, with intent to defraud, utters any forged'obligation -of the United States. But the offence at which it is aimed is similar to the common-law offence of uttering a forged or counterfeit bill. In this case, as in that, knowledge that the instrument is forged and counterfeited is essential to make out the crime; and an uttering, with intent to defraud, of an instrument in fact counterfeit, but supposed by the defendant to be genuine, though within the words of the statute, would not be within its meaning and object. v

This indictment, by omitting the allegation contained in the indictment in United States v. Howell (11 Wall. 432), and in all approved precedents, that the defendant knew the instrument which he uttered to be false, forged, and counterfeit, fails to charge Jiim with any crime. The omission is of matter of substance, and not a “ defect or imperfection in matter of form only,” within the meaning of sect. 1025 of the Revised Statutes By the settled rules of criminal pleading, and the authorities above cited, therefore, the question of the sufficiency of the indictment must be

Answered in the negative.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Citator

Cited By (129 total)

  • Insko v. State, 969 So. 2d 992 (Fla. 2007)
    …232, 23 L.Ed. 563 (1876) (Clifford, J., dissenting)). Thus, to apprise the accused of the specific charges against him, an information or indictment must contain all facts essential to the “offence intended to be punished.” United States v. Carll, 105 U.S. 611, 612-13, 26 L.Ed. 1135 (1881) (noting that the indictment should “set forth all the elements necessary to constitute the offence intended to be punished”); State v. Dye, 346 So. 2d 538, 541 (Fla.197.7) (“An information must allege each of the essent…
  • Weatherspoon v. State, 214 So. 3d 578 (Fla. 2017)
    …t “to apprise the accused of the specific charges against him, an information or indictment must contain all facts essential to the ‘of-fence intended to be punished.’” Insko v. State, 969 So. 2d 992, 995 (Fla. 2007) (quoting United States v. Carll, 105 U.S. 611, 612, 26 L.Ed. 1135 (1881)). “Historically, the ‘elements of a crime’ are the facts ‘legally essential to the punishment to be inflicted.’” Id. (quoting Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545, 561, 122 S.Ct. 2406, 153 L.Ed.2d 524 (2002)). In additio…
  • Kittleson v. State, 152 Fla. 242 (Fla. 1942)
    …d when such principles are applied to this information it must be held void because it charges no offense. See Reyes v. State, 34 Fla. 181, 15 So. 875; Vannoy v. State, 94 Fla. 1175, 115 So. 510. See also Dameron v. State, 8 Mo. 494; U. S. v. Carll, 105 U. S. 611, 26 L. Ed. 1135 and Newmann v. State, 116 Fla. 98, 156 So. 237. As the information charges no offense, the judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings. So ordered. BROWN, C. J., WHITFIELD, and ADAMS, JJ., concur.…

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