Leonard

This is an appeal by defendant from a judgment of conviction on three counts of forgery.

Facts

The basic facts are not in dispute. At the trial it was proved by defendant’s signed and witnessed extrajudicial admission that he wrote the checks in question without any authority from the owner of the bank account and obtained the cash therefrom for his own use. He had had four prior felony convictions which were charged and admitted prior to trial. He did not take the witness stand in his own defense. He offered only one witness, a person who was then under commitment to a state hospital as an alcoholic, who testified that defendant and Evangeline Sambos, the owner of the checking account, had lived together, and that she had handed the pink and white slips of her automobile to defendant and asked him to look after her financial affairs. Nothing was said about checks. Defendant does not contend that the evidence is insufficient to support the judgment if the corpus delicti was properly established.

Thus defense counsel has commendably cut straight to the only point in the case worthy of discussion. He states that “the only issue presented by this appeal is whether or not the…