Blackwell v. State

• Decision Date: 15 February 1909
• Citation: 48 So. 290,94 Miss. 240
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: WALTER BLACKWELL v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

48 So. 290

94 Miss. 240

WALTER BLACKWELL v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 15, 1909

October 1908

FROM the circuit court of, first district, Yalobusha county, HON SAMUEL C. COOK, Judge.

Blackwell appellant, was tried and convicted of robbery, was sentenced to the penitentiary for seven years, and appealed to the supreme court.

The indictment against appellant, omitting its introductory formal parts, was as follows: "Walter Blackwell, late of the county and district aforesaid, on the 27th day of January, 1908, in said county and district, did then and there represent to H. B. Dobbins that he was an officer and watchman, and did then and there threaten to arrest the said H. B. Dobbins and put him in jail, and did then and there willfully and feloniously take, steal, and carry away the personal property of the said H. B. Dobbins, consisting of a suit case, the value of $ 4 and one suit of clothes, value $ 20, delivered to the said Walter Blackwell by the said H. B Dobbins, through fear of threatened injury to his person by the said Walter Blackwell, said property being the property of H. B. Dobbins, against the peace and dignity of the state of Mississippi."

Reversed.

Wm. F. Hamilton and W. P. Shinault, for appellant.

The indictment fails to charge any offense. Merely representing one's self as an officer of the law and threatening to put another person in jail, and thereby obtaining, by trick or artifice, the property of another, will not support an indictment charging robbery. Simmons v. State, 28 So. 881. The indictment fails to charge that the property was taken from the person of Dobbins and in his presence. This omission is fatal. Code 1906, § 1361. The indictment fails to charge that the taking was against the wishes or without the consent of Dobbins.

George Butler, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.

The question here presented is whether, under the provisions of Code 1906, § 1361, impersonating a public officer and arresting a person and threatening to put him in jail, and thereby procuring from him possession of his property, constitutes robbery. Frankness compels the statement that we can find no case so holding, See, however, Simmons v. State, 28 So. 881; Bussey v. State, 71 Ga. 100; Long v. State, 12 Ga. 293; Williams v. State, 12 Tex.App. 240.

OPINION

MAYES, J.

We do not think any offense is charged under the indictment in this case....