Henry Billings Brown

“ While the officers of the bank who verify and attest the reports are doubtless responsible for what is contained in them, if, as matter of fact, and as often happens, the entries in such reports are actually made by other agents of the association, it does not diminish the criminality of such agents, in the eye of the law, that the reports are ostensibly those of the president and cashier. ”

“ The second objection, that the defendants could not be convicted as principals in making the reports, but only as accessories, would probably be true, if they were charged with making such reports. And the third objection, that no one except he who verifies the reports can be convicted under said indictments, is unsound, as matter of law, for the reason above stated,-that the penalty is affixed to the making of the false entry, and not at all to the making of the report. ”

“ These cover all the objections taken to the indictment in the brief of defendants' counsel.
Few indictments under the national banking law are so skillfully drawn as to be beyond the hypercriticism of astute counsel,-few which might not be made more definite by additional allegations. ”

“ If the statements of Thomas be taken as true, he, although verifying the reports as cashier, could not be held criminally liable for their falsity, shince he took and believed the statements of Cochran and Sayre as to the truth and correctness of such reports. ”

“ U.S., 15 Sup. Ct. 394, one of the instructions asked and refused was as follows: 'The law presumes that persons charged with crime are innocent until they are proven by competent evidence to be guilty. ”