State v. Riggs

• Citation: 106 A. 216
• Parties: STATE v. RIGGS et al.
• Decision Date: 27 April 1918
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

106 A. 216

STATE

v. RIGGS et al.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

April 27, 1918.

John A. Riggs and others, directors of the Trenton Street Railway Company, were indicted in several eases by the grand jury in the court of oyer and terminer for obstructing certain public streets in the City of Trenton by erecting poles and stringing wires thereon, and they pleaded not guilty, and upon the same day, with the consent of the prosecutor, withdrew such pleas and immediately applied for and were allowed a writ of certiorari transferring the proceedings to this court, where they moved to quash the indictments. Indictments in each case quashed.

Argued February term, 1918, before BERGEN and BLACK, JJ.

Frank S. Katzenbach, Jr., and Scott Scammell, both of Trenton, and Robert H. McCarter, of Newark, for prosecutors.

Martin P. Devlin, of Trenton, for the State.

BERGEN, J. The record before us contains an indictment against John A. Riggs, Richmond L. Jones, Ferdinand W. Roebling, Jr., Edwin H. Ginnelley, Walter A. Riggs, T. W. Grookett, Jr., and John W. Goodwin, as directors of the Trenton Street Railway Company, for obstructing certain public streets in the city of Trenton by erecting poles and stringing wires thereon. The indictment contains numerous counts applicable to different streets and highways in the city of Trenton, each count being in the same form except as to the names of the several streets. Two other indictments were presented against the same defendants, and one against other defendants for similar offenses, and by stipulation it was agreed that the evidence taken in one case should be applicable to all. The cases were argued together, and the determination in one will control the result in the others.

The record shows that the defendants entered pleas of not guilty, and on the same day they were withdrawn with the consent of the prosecutor of the pleas, that an application might be made for a writ of certiorari, which was immediately applied for and allowed, and by its command the record and proceedings were brought into this court, where motions were made to quash the indictments, which is the matter now to be determined.

Three matters are urged in support of the motion to quash: First, that the grand jury presenting the indictment was illegally summoned; second, that the grand jury was not an impartial one; third, that the indictments are invalid.

The first and second reasons urged amount to nothing more than a challenge to the array of the grand inquest, to sustain which there must be proof of facts which do not appear in the indictment. Under the present state of the law in this jurisdiction, a motion to quash an indictment removed to the Supreme Court by certiorari for that purpose will not be given favorable consideration unless the indictment on its face appears incapable of supporting a judgment of conviction, and such a motion based on an alleged illegal impaneling of the grand jury, which requires proof of facts outside of the indictment and caption, will not be granted. State v. Bowman, 82 N. J. Law, 210, 81 Atl. 561.

Chief Justice Beasley in an opinion written for this court, which was afterwards affirmed on his opinion by the Court of Errors and Appeals, in Gibbs & Stanton v. State, 45 N. J. Law, 379, on page 382 (46 Am. Rep. 782), said:

"The remedies which the law afforded these defendants, situated as they were, were these: First, they had the right to challenge this grand jury, either as a whole or in part on the grounds now stated in their pleas; or, second, if an opportunity for doing this was not afforded to them by reason of their ignorance that they would be proceeded against, or that the objections to the proceedings in question existed, then their right was to apply to the court, in the exercise of its discretion to quash the entire procedure against them."

It must be remembered that in the present case the defendants had ample opportunity to challenge the legality of the grand jury in the court of oyer and terminer, where the indictment was found, and so far as this record stands they have interposed no plea, for the one entered was immediately withdrawn.

The proper practice, where the ground is that no proper grand jury was impaneled, is to move to quash before the trial court which has the power to hear and determine the question of fact upon which the objection is based,...