Connors v. State

• Decision Date: 14 October 1915
• Docket Number: No. 22794.,22794.
• Citation: 183 Ind. 618,109 N.E. 757
• Parties: CONNORS v. STATE.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

183 Ind. 618

109 N.E. 757

CONNORS

v.STATE.

No. 22794.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Oct. 14, 1915.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; Oren O. Swails, Judge.

William Connors was convicted, and appeals. Reversed, and new trial granted.

Seba A. Barnes, of Seymour, for appellant. Richard M. Milburn, Atty. Gen., Marshall Woolery, of Bedford, and Horace M. Kean, Leslie R. Naftzger, Omar S. Jackson, Michael A. Sweeney, and Wilbur T. Gruber, Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.

ERWIN, J.

This was a prosecution for burglary, alleged to have been committed on March 19, 1915. Appellant was arrested on March 19th, and confined in jail until March 29th. On March 25, 1915, the same being the 22d day of March term of said court, the prosecuting attorney filed an affidavit, charging appellant, with others, with the crime of burglary. On March 29th his case was set for trial for April 1, 1915. On the day on which his trial was to begin he made application to defend as a poor person. The application was granted, and appellant was assigned counsel, who presented on behalf of his client a verified motion for a continuance, which motion, omitting formal parts, is as follows:

“William Connors, being duly sworn, says: That he is one of the defendants in the above-entitled cause; that he cannot go to trial on this, the 1st day of April, 1915, or on any day at the present term of this court, on account of the absence of Henry Stephens, a competent witness in his behalf and whose evidence is material to his defense. That said witness resides in the city of Louisville in the state of Kentucky, and that said witness is now at Louisville in the state of Kentucky, as affiant is informed and believes. That affiant believes that if said witness were present, he would testify to the following facts: That this defendant and said witness were together during all of the day of the 18th day of March, 1915, all of the night of said day, and all of the night and morning of the 19th day of March, 1915, until about 7 a. m. on the morning of March 19, 1915, and was with affiant at the identical time the storehouse of John T. Glasson is alleged and claimed to have been robbed on the morning of March 19, 1915, or the night of March 18, 1915, and that this affiant did not, in any manner, know of or participate in the entry into said John T. Glasson's storehouse as alleged in the affidavit herein, for the purpose of committing a felony, or for any other purpose whatever; that this affiant was, at the time said store is alleged to have been entered and burglarized, on said date with said witness, and were at said time at least three miles from Reddington, Jackson county, Ind., and at least three miles away from said storehouse, and that this affiant had no knowledge that said storehouse was to be entered and burglarized, or that it had been entered and burglarized until many hours after the said crime charged herein had been committed; that this affiant had no knowledge of or connection with the entering and burglarizing of said storehouse or store as charged in the affidavit herein, and that affiant is not in any manner guilty of the crime charged against him herein, and that he is wholly innocent of said crime of entering said store and...