Baker v. State

• Decision Date: 10 November 1890
• Citation: 53 N.J.L. 45,20 A. 858
• Parties: BAKER v. STATE.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

20 A. 858

53 N.J.L. 45)

BAKER

v. STATE.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Nov. 10, 1890.

CHARACTER.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to court of quarter sessions, Camden county; HUGG, McDOWELL, and GRANT, Judges.

Argued June term, 1890, before BEASLEY, C. J., and MAGIE and DIXON, JJ.

Geo. A. Vroom, for plaintiff in error. Wilson H. Jenkins, for the State.

DIXON, J. The plaintiff in error was convicted in the Camden quarter sessions of being a common scold. One ground on which she seeks a reversal of the judgment is because the indictment does not state the particular facts which make a common scold. But it is not necessary that the indictment should be so explicit. It is enough for it to aver that the accused is a common scold to the common nuisance, etc. Where the offense consists, not of a single act, but of an habitual course of conduct, an indictment need not charge the details of that conduct, which are only evidence of the misdemeanor, but must charge the general practice which constitutes the crime itself. Hawk. P. C. bk. 2, c. 25, §§ 57, 59; Com. v. Pray, 13 Pick. 359, 362; Whart. Crim. Pl. & Pr. § 155.

Another reason urged for reversal is that the court charged the jury as follows: "The evidence on the part of the state consists of a number of witnesses who have sworn, not that she only scolded one person at one time, but that she did it to several persons on several occasions. Now, if you believe she did that thing, if you believe the evidence on the part of the state, she is guilty of being a common nuisance to the neighborhood in which she resides." This charge did not correctly point out to the jury the facts required to warrant a conviction, nor submit to their judgment, as it should, the question whether such facts were proved. A woman does not necessarily become a common scold by scolding several persons on several occasions. It is the habit of scolding, resulting in a public nuisance, which is criminal; and whether the scoldings to which the state's witnesses testified were so frequent as to prove the existence of the habit, and whether the habit was indulged under such circumstances as to disturb the public peace, were questions which the jury alone could lawfully decide, and which were no less important than the credibility of witnesses. Brown v. State, 49 N. J. Law, 61, 7 Atl. Rep. 340.

The court also charged the jury as follows: "There is some evidence as to the defendant's good character for peace and quietness. In a doubtful...