Haughn v. State

• Decision Date: 18 November 1902
• Citation: 65 N.E. 287,159 Ind. 413
• Parties: HAUGHN et al. v. STATE.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

159 Ind. 413

65 N.E. 287

HAUGHN et al.

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Nov. 18, 1902.

Appeal from circuit court, Franklin county; Ferd. S. Swift, Judge.

John P. Haughn and another were convicted of bunko steering, and they appeal. Reversed.

Conner & Conner, James B. Kidney, and Elliott, Elliott & Littleton, for appellants. W. L. Taylor, Atty. Gen., Merrill Moores, and C. C. Hadley, for the State.

GILLETT, J.

The appellants, John S. Johns and John P. Haughn, appeal to this court from a judgment convicting them of a violation of section 2178, Burns' Rev. St. 1901. That statute is in the words following: “Whoever allures, entices, or persuades another to any place upon any pretense, and then, by duress or fraud, compels such person to win or lose or advance or loan money, or execute or give his note or other obligation either for money or anything of value, or to part with anything of value upon any game or wager, or by means of any trick, device or artifice, is guilty of bunko steering, and upon conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned in the state prison not more than fourteen years nor less than two years; and all persons present at such place at such time, and engaged therein, shall be prosecuted, tried, and punished for such offense as principals.” The information, aside from the caption, is as follows: “George L. Gray, prosecuting attorney in and for the 37th judicial circuit of the state of Indiana, now gives the Franklin circuit court to understand and be informed that John P. Haughn, Albert H. King, John S. Johns, and J. C. Stillson, of Franklin county, on the 1st day of June, 1901, at and in the county of Franklin, in the state of Indiana, did then and there unlawfully and feloniously allure, entice, and persuade one Edward W. Duvall to go to a certain place in said county, to wit, to the public highway extending southwardly from the Brookville and Whitcomb free gravel road through sections twenty-one and twenty, in township number nine (9), range two (2) west, to the East Fork of White Water river, upon the pretense that two men, to wit, Perry Ballard and J. C. Stillson, would then and there run a foot race for a wager of seventeen hundred ($1,700.00) dollars, and said John P. Haughn, Albert H. King, John S. Johns, and J. C. Stillson did then and there unlawfully and feloniously, by duress and fraud, compel the said Edward W. Duvall to lose and part with a large amount of money, to wit, the great sum of seventeen hundred ($1,700.00) dollars, upon a certain game, to wit, a foot race between two men; that all of said defendants, to wit, John P. Haughn, Albert H. King, John S. Johns, and J. C. Stillson, were then and there present at said place, and engaged in so compelling said Edward W. Duvall to so lose and part with said sum of money; contrary to the form of the statute in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state of Indiana, as Edward W. Duvall has complained on oath. [Signed] George L. Gray, Prosecuting Attorney.” The appellants moved to quash the information, but their motion was overruled, and they excepted. An assignment of error brings said ruling under review.

If a criminal statute provides a definition of an offense, and states specifically what acts constitute it, it will suffice to charge the offense in the language of the statute. State v. McRoberts, 4 Blackf. 178;Malone v. State, 14 Ind. 219;Payne v. State, 74 Ind. 203;Howard v. State, 87 Ind. 68. But where the definition of the offense contains generic terms, it is not sufficient to allege the species of the crime, but the pleader must descend to particulars. Bowles v. State, 13 Ind. 427; Malone v. State, supra; State v. Bruner, 111 Ind. 98, 12 N. E. 103;U. S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 23 L. Ed. 588;U. S. v. Carll, 105 U. S. 611, 26 L. Ed. 1135;Boyd v. Com., 77 Va. 52; State v. Graham, 38 Ark. 519; Burch v. Republic, 1 Tex. 608;Kerry v. State, 17 Tex. App. 178, 50 Am. Rep. 122. Serjeant Hawkins, in his Pleas of the Crown, said: “Neither doth it seem to be always sufficient to pursue the very words of the statute, unless by so doing you fully, directly, and expressly allege the fact in the doing or not doing whereof the offense consists without the least uncertainty or ambiguity.” Vol. 2, c. 25, § 111. In U. S. v. Simmons, 96 U. S. 360, 362, 24 L. Ed. 819, the supreme court of the United States stated the rule and the exception in the following language: “Where the offense is purely statutory, having no relation to the common law, it is, ‘as a general rule, sufficient in the indictment to charge the defendant with acts coming fully within the statutory description, in the substantial words of the statute, without any further expansion of the matter.’ 1 Bish. Cr. Proc. § 611, and authorities there cited. But to this general rule there is the qualification, fundamental in the law of criminal procedure, that the accused must be apprised by the indictment with reasonable certainty of the nature of the accusation against him, to the end that he may prepare his defense, and plead the judgment as a bar to any subsequent prosecution for the same offense. An indictment not so framed is defective, although it may follow the language of the statute.” In a later case the same court said: “A rule of criminal pleading, which at one time obtained in some of the circuits, and perhaps received a qualified sanction from this court in U. S. v. Mills, 7 Pet. 138, 8 L. Ed. 636, that an indictment for a statutory misdemeanor is sufficient if the offense be charged in the words of the statute, must, under more recent decisions, be limited to cases where the words of the statute themselves, as was said by this court in U. S. v. Carll, 105 U. S. 611, 612, 26 L. Ed. 1135, ‘fully, directly, and expressly, without any uncertainty and ambiguity, set forth all the elements necessary to constitute the offense intended to be punished.”’ Evans v. U. S., 153 U. S. 584, 587, 14 Sup. Ct. 934, 38 L. Ed. 830. As evincing the position of this court upon the subject, both in its early history and quite recently, we quote the following from the opinion in the case...