US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

The question whether either of the counts in an indictment charges an offense under the laws of the United states, is too vague and general to be certified in a Certificate of Division of Opinion.

An indictment claiming that the defendant, "as president and agent" of . . national bank, did the acts forbidden by Rev.Stat. § 5209 does not vitiate the counts in which he is so described.

In an indictment under Rev.Stat. § 5209 for willfully misapplying the funds of a national bank, it is not necessary to charge that the moneys and funds alleged to have been misapplied had been previously entrusted to the defendant, since a willful and criminal misapplication of the fund of the association may be made by its officer or agent without having previously received them into his manual possession.

In charging in an indictment the president of a back with aiding and abetting its cashier in the misapplication of the foods of the bank, it is not necessary to aver that he then and there knew that the person so aided and abetted was the cashier.

An indictment which charges in substance that the defendant was president and agent of a certain national bank theretofore duly organized and established and then existing and doing business under the laws of the United States, and that, being such president and agent, he did then and there

"willfully and unlawfully and with intent to injure the said national banking association, and without the knowledge and consent thereof, abstract and convert to his own use certain moneys and funds of the property of the said association of the amount and value,"

etc., sufficiently describes and identities the crime of abstracting the funds of the bank created by Rev.Stat. § 5209.

An indictment which charges that the defendant

"was then and there president and agent of a certain national banking association, to-wit [naming tie association] theretofore duly organized and established, and then existing and doing business at [naming the place] under the laws of the United States"

sufficiently states that that bank was organized under tie National Banking Act or to carry on the business of banking under a law of the United States.

This was a certificate of division of opinion as to the sufficiency of the counts in an indictment for abstracting and misapplying the funds of a national bank. The case is stated in the opinion of the Court. chanrobles.com-red

Page 120 U. S. 328