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

United States versus Infante and Barreto

The Case

This is a criminal appeal by Roman Infante and Tomas Barreto against their conviction for the falsification of a private document. The Government of the United States, as plaintiff, prosecuted the two accused for tampering with a pawn ticket issued by the Monte de Piedad and then using the altered ticket to obtain money from a private pawnshop. The case matters because it draws a clean line between the crime of falsification and the separate crime of embezzlement, and because it settles when falsification is consummated: at the moment the document is actually falsified, not when it is later used. It also teaches how double jeopardy is measured when two distinct documents are falsified in one continuous scheme.

Procedural History

The accused were first tried and convicted of falsifying one pawn ticket issued by the Monte de Piedad, committed to the prejudice of and with intent to prejudice the complaining witness. In a second and separate prosecution, they were again convicted in the court below, this time for falsifying another pawn ticket issued by the same institution. On appeal to the Supreme Court, counsel raised the same assignments of error already resolved in the companion case, and added one substantial contention: that the second information should have been dismissed on the plea of double jeopardy interposed in the court below. The appeal therefore reached the Supreme Court as an ordinary appeal from the judgment of conviction.

Facts

The accused obtained a pawn ticket issued by the Monte de Piedad. On the face of that ticket they changed the description of the pawned article and substituted another article of greatly superior value. The falsified ticket was then pawned in the pawnshop of the complaining witness for an amount largely in excess of the true value of the article actually pledged with the Monte de Piedad.

At or about the same time, the accused falsified a second pawn ticket issued by the Monte de Piedad, in substantially the same manner as the first. Both falsified tickets were pawned in the pawnshop of the complaining witness at the same time and for the same purpose: to procure a loan far in excess of the true value of the articles originally pledged.

The first falsification was the subject of the earlier conviction. The second falsification is the subject of this case. The defense argued that because both tickets were falsified at about the same time, for the same purpose, and used together to obtain one sum of money, only one crime was committed.

Issues

• Whether or not the falsification of two separate pawn tickets, made at or about the same time and used together to obtain a single loan, constitutes one crime or two distinct crimes of falsification of a private document.
• Whether or not the second prosecution is barred by the plea of double jeopardy, given the earlier conviction for falsifying the other pawn ticket.

Applicable Provisions

Article 304 of the Penal Code, as quoted in the decision, provides:

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.

This provision defines the crime and fixes the moment of its consummation: the offense is complete when the private document is actually falsified to the damage of another or with intent to cause such damage, regardless of any later use of the document.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that two separate crimes were committed. 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 would in effect be the 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 did not affect the case, because under the definition in Article 304 the crime is consummated at the moment the 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.

On the second issue, the Court rejected the plea of double jeopardy. The earlier conviction was for falsifying one ticket; this prosecution was for falsifying another. Each falsification constituted a single, consummated offense wholly separate and distinct from the other, and wholly separate and distinct from the crime of embezzlement committed when the falsified tickets were used to procure money from the pawnshop. The Court found no error in the proceedings prejudicial to the rights of the accused.

Doctrine

Falsification of a private document is consummated at the moment the document is actually falsified, to the damage of another or with intent to cause such damage. The subsequent use of the falsified document, even to commit another crime such as embezzlement, does not change the nature or the moment of consummation of the falsification. Each separate document falsified gives rise to a separate and distinct crime, unless the documents form a series so intimately related that falsifying one is in effect falsifying the entire series. Consequently, a prior conviction for falsifying one document does not bar a later prosecution for falsifying a different document, and no double jeopardy attaches.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of conviction and sentence against the accused, with costs.

Remember This

Memorize the rule that falsification of a private document is complete the moment the document is falsified, and that each separate document falsified is a separate crime. Examiners use this case to test double jeopardy and the distinction between falsification and the separate crime of embezzlement committed through the use of the falsified document.