THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. ROMAN INFANTE AND TOMAS BARRETO, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

This case intimately connected with No. 11449^[1]
just decided. What was said in our opinion in that case, in disposing
of the various assignments of error, is in large part applicable to the
assignments of error relied upon in this case, and disposes adversely
of all the substantial contentions of counsel on this appeal, except
their claim that the information in this case should have been
dismissed on the plea of double jeopardy interposed in the court below.

Appellants in this case were convicted in the former case of the
crime of falsification of a private document, in that they falsified a
pawn ticket issued by the Monte de Piedad, to the prejudice
of and with intent to prejudice the complaining witness. The evidence
disclosed that these accused changed the description of the pawned
article as it appeared on the face of the pawn ticket and substituted
therefor another article of greatly superior value, and that thereafter
the falsified ticket was itself pawned in the pawnshop of the
complaining witness for an amount largely in excess of the true value
of the article pawned in the Monte de Piedad, for which the original pawn ticket was issued.

In the present case these appellants were convicted in the court
below of the falsification of another pawn ticket issued by the Monte
de Piedad, and the evidence discloses that this pawn ticket was
falsified by these accused at or about the same time when they
falsified the pawn ticket for the falsification of which they were
convicted at the former trial; that the falsification was made in
substantially similar manner to that in which the other ticket was
falsified; and that both the falsified tickets were pawned in the
pawnshop of the complaining witness at the same time and for the same
purpose, that is to say, to procure a loan far in excess of the true
value of the articles originally pawned in the Monte de Piedad.

The contention of counsel would seem to be that, since both these
tickets were falsified at or about the same time and for the same
purpose, and since both were used at the same time to procure
unlawfully a certain sum of money from the pawn-broking establishment
of the complaining witness, there was but one crime committed.

But whatever force there might be in this contention were the
accused charged in these separate informations with the embezzlement of
the money advanced by the pawnshop upon presentation of the separate
falsified pawn tickets, such a contention cannot be successfully
maintained with relation to the two separate charges of falsification of a private document
upon which the accused were tried and convicted in the court below,
each of which constituted a single, consummated offense wholly separate
and distinct from the other and wholly separate and distinct from the
crime of embezzlement which was committed when illegal and improper use
was made of these falsified pawn tickets to procure money from the
pawnshop of the complaining witness.

The two pawn tickets were wholly separate and distinct documents.
They had no relation to each other as members of a series of
instruments, so intimately related, that the falsification of one
individual of the series would be, in effect, a falsification of the
entire series. The crime of falsification of a private document was
complete and consummated when, with intent to prejudice a third person,
the first pawn ticket was actually falsified; and a wholly separate and
distinct crime was initiated and consummated when the second ticket was
falsified. That both documents may have been falsified to be used
together in the perpetration of an embezzlement in no wise affects the case, as under the definition of
the crime of falsification of private documents set out in article 304
of the Penal Code, the crime is consummated and complete at the moment
when such a document is actually falsified, to the prejudice of, or
with intent to prejudice a third person, it matters not to what use the
document may be put thereafter, as will readily be seen from the
express terms of that article, which are as follows:

“Any person who, to the damage of another, or with the intent to
cause such damage, shall in any private document commit any of the acts
of falsification enumerated in article three hundred shall suffer the
penalty of presidio correctional in its minimum and medium
degrees and be fined in a sum not less than six hundred and twenty-five
and not more than six thousand two hundred and fifty pesetas.”

We find no error in the proceedings had in the court below
prejudicial to the rights of the accused, and the judgment convicting
and sentencing him should, therefore, be affirmed, with costs. So
ordered.

Torres, Moreland, Trent, and Araullo, JJ., concur.

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^[1] See page 149.