ISHAM W. ADAMS, JR., APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Adams was convicted of obtaining property by worthless check in violation of Florida Statute Section 832.05(3). The First District Court of Appeal held that intent to defraud is not an essential element of this offense, contrary to arguments made by other district courts.
Intent to defraud is not an essential element of the offense proscribed by Section 832.05(3). The court rejected the approach taken by other district courts that read an intent to defraud requirement into the statute despite the statute's omission of such language and its explicit statutory exceptions.
[1] Intent to defraud is not an essential element of the offense of unlawfully obtaining property by means of a worthless check under Section 832.05(3), Florida Statutes (197…
[2] A statutory defense to the worthless check statute exists if the payee knew or had good reason to believe prior to the check's delivery that the maker lacked sufficient f…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“It shall be unlawful for any person, . to obtain any . . . goods . by means of a check . . . upon any bank . . ., knowing at the time of the making, drawing, uttering, issuing or delivering of said check . . . that the maker thereof has not sufficient funds on deposit in or credit with such bank . . . with which to pay the same upon presentation”
The statutory language of Section 832.05(3) that does not explicitly require intent to defraud as an element of the offense
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAdams was convicted of unlawfully obtaining property by means of a worthless check he knew to be worthless. The check lacked sufficient funds to cover…
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SMITH, Acting Chief Judge.
Adams was convicted of unlawfully obtaining property by means of a worthless check he knew to be worthless, contrary to Section 832.05(3), Florida Statutes (1975), which provides in part:
It shall be unlawful for any person, . to obtain any . . . goods . by means of a check . . . upon any bank . . ., knowing at the time of the making, drawing, uttering, issuing or delivering of said check . . . that the maker thereof has not sufficient funds on deposit in or credit with such bank . . . with which to pay the same upon presentation .
Adams urges that the trial court erred in denying his request for a charge that intent to defraud is an essential element of the offense. We lack a transcript of the court’s charge, but the transcript of the charge conference indicates, and we must assume, that the court charged the jury using Florida Standard Jury Instruction (Criminal) 2.07 (2d ed. 1976), which incorporates the statutory defense:
It is a defense to this charge that at the time of delivery of the check the said payee knew, had been expressly notified or had good reason to believe prior to the drawing or uttering of the check that the person drawing the check did not have on deposit or to his credit with the bank sufficient funds to insure payment of the check upon presentation. We hold that intent to defraud is not an essential element of the offense proscribed by Section 832.05(3). Anderson v. Bryson, 94 Fla. 1165, 115 So. 505 (1927), which concerned a predecessor statute requiring allegation and proof of intent to defraud, contains dictum that “[wjithout the element of fraud, the statute might be repugnant to section 16 of the Declaration of Rights, which provides that ‘no person shall be imprisoned for debt, except in cases of fraud’.” Other district courts of appeal, giving that dictum effect, have read intent to defraud into the statutory elements notwithstanding that the present statute omits reference to an intent to defraud but explicitly excepts innocent transactions of a certain character. Prince v. State, 333 So. 2d 63 (Fla. 4th DCA 1976); Bailer v. State, 337 So. 2d 415 (Fla. 4th DCA 1976); Berry v. State, 345 So. 2d 828 (Fla. 4th DCA 1977). We believe, to the contrary, that the Supreme Court silently retracted the Anderson dictum in Ennis v. State, 95 So. 2d 20 (Fla.1957), cert. den., 355 U.S. 868, 78 S.Ct. 117, 2 L.Ed.2d 74 (1957) and held, as did State v. Yarboro, 194 N.C. 498, 140 S.E. 216 (1927) and State v. Avery, 111 Kan. 588, 207 P. 838 (1922) under comparable statutes, that a conviction under Section 832.05 may be had absent proof of an intent to defraud. Contra, United States v. Frazier, 444 F. 2d 235 (5th Cir. 1971). Therefore, the judgment and sentence are
AFFIRMED.
BOOTH, J., concurs.
ERVIN, J., dissents.
ERVIN, Judge,
dissenting.
I do not read Ennis v. State, 95 So. 2d 20 (Fla.1957), cert. den., 355 U.S. 868, 78 S.Ct. 117, 2 L.Ed.2d 74 (1957), as does the majority, as not requiring an intent to defraud. Ennis was concerned only with the constitutionality of Section 832.05, Florida Statutes (1955), which did not include within its provisions, as did a predecessor statute, the intent to defraud. The court was not confronted with a situation, as are we, in which a request to so instruct was declined. In two prior cases where the question was directly raised, Prince v. State, 333 So. 2d 63 (Fla. 4th DCA 1976), cert. den., 339 So. 2d 1172 (Fla.1976), and Berry v. State, 345 So. 2d 828 (Fla. 4th DCA 1977), the Fourth District Court of Appeal held that the intent to defraud was an essential and indispensable element of the crime of obtaining property in return for a worthless check. Similarly, neither Section 831.02, Florida Statutes (1971), prohibiting the commission of forgery, nor Section 814.03(1), Florida Statutes (1973), proscribing larceny of a motor vehicle, contained specific provisions requiring an intent to defraud, yet both were construed as so requiring. Rapp v. State, 274 So. 2d 18 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973); Austin v. Wainwright, 305 So. 2d 845 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975).
I would remand for a new trial.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Waters v. State, 357 So. 2d 487 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978)…PER CURIAM. Affirmed on authority of Adams v. State, 356 So. 2d 346 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), and State v. Berry, 358 So. 2d 545 (Fla.1978). BOYER, Acting C. J., and MILLS and ERVIN, JJ., concur.…
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Jones v. State, 356 So. 2d 837 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978)…at the trial court committed reversible error by denying his requested instruction that intent to defraud is an essential element of the crime proscribed by Section 832.05(3), Florida Statutes (1975). This court’s recent decision in Adams v. State, 356 So. 2d 346 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), considered the identical issue, and held that intent to defraud is not an essential element of the offense proscribed by Section 832.05 (3). Therefore, the judgment and sentence are AFFIRMED. MILLS, Acting C. J., and SMITH and…
Authorities Cited
- Anderson v. Bryson, 94 Fla. 1165 (Fla. 1927)
- Ennis v. State, 95 So. 2d 20 (Fla. 1957)
- Weinstein v. United States, 355 U.S. 868 (U.S. 1957)
- Epstein v. United States, 355 U.S. 868 (U.S. 1957)
- Austin v. Louie L. Wainwright, 305 So. 2d 845 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975)
- Wilson v. State, 333 So. 2d 63 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976)
- Rapp v. State, 274 So. 2d 18 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973)
- United States v. Frazier, 444 F.2d 235 (5th Cir. 1971)
- Berry v. State, 345 So. 2d 828 (Fla. 4th DCA 1977)
- Bailer v. State, 337 So. 2d 415 (Fla. 4th DCA 1976)