Bradford v. State
| Decision Date | 27 May 1939 |
| Citation | 128 S.W.2d 627,174 Tenn. 526 |
| Parties | BRADFORD v. STATE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Haywood County; W. W. Bond, Judge.
Oliver Bradford was convicted of possessing liquor, and he brings error.
Affirmed.
Kinney & Norris, of Brownsville, for plaintiff in error.
Nat Tipton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
There was a conviction below of possessing liquor, with a fine of $350 and workhouse sentence of six months. Four half pints were found by an officer at one place in Bradford's home and a gallon in another. The officer was armed with a search warrant, the legality of which is challenged on the ground only that it was signed "T. J. Pearson, Justice of the Peace", when said Pearson was not a justice of the peace. It appears from the bill of exceptions that objection was duly made to the testimony of the officer, "because the search warrant under which he acted was nugatory and void, because said T. J. Pearson was not and is not a Justice of the Peace." The bill of exceptions further shows that "the Attorney General agreed *** that said T. J. Pearson was not a Justice of the Peace, but was Judge of the County Court of Haywood County, Tennessee, under Chapter 481 Private Acts of Tennessee of 1933." The trial Court overruled the objection thus made to the validity of the warrant and admitted the testimony. Appealing, his ruling is assigned as error.
Section 12 of the Act of 1933, which creates the office of County Judge for Haywood County, provides "That said County Judge shall have the same jurisdiction to hear and try criminal cases as is granted under the law to justices of the peace." Since Pearson, who issued this search warrant, was the County Judge, and since this Act was within the exercise of the criminal jurisdiction conferred by law on Justices of the Peace, the warrant was, in fact signed and issued by an official lawfully empowered to perform this judicial function. It is obvious that in providing that the County Judge should have the same jurisdiction to "hear and try criminal cases" as have justices of the peace, the Legislature intended to include jurisdiction to issue all process incidental to the exercise of such jurisdiction.
The question narrows, therefore, to whether or not this judicial officer invalidated his process by placing under his signature (or leaving there as printed on a form) the words "Justice of the Peace". It will be conceded that this insistence is highly technical. It can hardly be maintained that this title-misnomer goes to the merits, in any degree violates the intent of our statutes requiring a searching officer to be provided with a warrant issued by a properly authorized judicial officer. The warrant was, in fact, issued by such a judicial authority, and the searching officer knew this to be the fact. Courts look thru forms to substance. When the rights of the citizen are thus fully protected, such a minor mistake in matter of form only should not be permitted to defeat justice. So that, on principle, such a misnomer should be disregarded. The identity of the signer of this warrant is conceded. The rule as to misnomer in corporate deeds has application by analogy. "The general concurrence of modern authority is to the effect that a misnomer or variation from the precise name of a corporation in a grant or obligation by it or to it is not material if the identity of the corporation is unmistakable, either from the face of the instrument or from proof and averments." Precious Blood Society v. Elsythe, 102 Tenn. 40, at page 45, 50 S.W. 759, at page 760, citing numerous authorities, and see Bank v. Burke, 1 Cold. 623, 41 Tenn. 623.
We are cited to no case passing on such an irregularity in a search warrant, but we have a number of decisions dealing with irregularities in the signing of indictments, the rule being that the Courts take judicial notice of the proper officer to prefer indictments; and when it appears he intended to sign officially, will disregard the omission of any, or the adding of an improper, official designation, etc....
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Collins v. State
... ... no form for this endorsement on the back of the warrant, and ... it may be disregarded as surplusage. As we have said before, ... the Courts will not permit such technical objections to ... prevail and defeat justice. See Bradford v. State, ... 174 Tenn. 526, at page 528, 128 S.W.2d 627. The holding in ... Harvey v. State, 166 Tenn. 227, 60 S.W.2d 420, cited ... for plaintiff in error, is not in point. That was an ... irreconcilable variance between the date of the affidavit and ... the warrant itself; not, as here, ... ...