Havlicek v. State
| Decision Date | 17 November 1917 |
| Docket Number | 20113 |
| Citation | 165 N.W. 251,101 Neb. 782 |
| Parties | JOSEPH J. HAVLICEK v. STATE OF NEBRASKA |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
ERROR to the district court for Douglas county: WILLIS G. SEARS JUDGE. Affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
Joseph T. Votava, for plaintiff in error.
Willis E. Reed, Attorney General, and John L. Cutright, contra.
OPINION
Defendant prosecutes error from a judgment of the district court for Douglas county, wherein he was sentenced to a term of one year in the penitentiary for wife abandonment.
A complaint was filed before the county judge September 28 1915. Hearing was continued with the consent of defendant, until November 17, 1915. Thereafter it was continued from time to time without his consent until June, 1916, when a hearing was had, and defendant held for trial in the district court. Upon being arraigned in the district court he filed a special appearance objecting to the jurisdiction of the court. The special appearance was overruled, and a plea of not guilty entered. The point is made that the examining magistrate had lost jurisdiction, and that no preliminary hearing had been accorded defendant. But we are not called upon to determine the question. It was not properly presented by the special appearance. In White v. State, 28 Neb. 341, 44 N.W. 443, it was held that a district court had no jurisdiction to try an accused person until a preliminary examination had been held according to law. But this holding is expressly overruled in Coffield v. State, 44 Neb. 417, 62 N.W. 875. The court had jurisdiction. The special appearance was properly overruled. No motion to quash or plea in abatement was filed, and all defects were waived by pleading to the general issue.
It is next urged that the trial court erred in the admission of evidence. Defendant took his departure from Omaha, where he and his wife resided, July 30, 1913, and the information alleged the abandonment as of that date. On the trial letters written by defendant to his wife after his departure were introduced in evidence. After she had testified to the receipt of the letters, she was asked if he had obtained a divorce from her. Objection was made to that testimony as incompetent, immaterial and irrelevant. The objection was overruled, and she answered in the affirmative. She was next asked as to the date when she received this information, and, over the same objection, was permitted to answer. The inquiry being further pressed, the trial court interrupted and remarked that the state could not prove a divorce by hearsay testimony. From the form of the objections and the argument contained in the brief it is clear that counsel did not object to the questions the witness was permitted to answer because they called for hearsay testimony or because her statement was not the best evidence, but objected on the theory that proof of what defendant did after the date fixed in the information was incompetent. In overruling the objection the trial court was, as he supposed, holding that proof of divorce was competent, and in this he was clearly right.
It is the duty of counsel to make his objections so specific that the court may understand the point intended to be raised, and, unless prejudicially erroneous on the point presented, the admission of the evidence to which objection is offered will not be held prejudicially erroneous for some reason which counsel did not suggest at the trial.
"Unless the objection to offered evidence be sufficiently specific to enlighten the trial court and enable it to pass upon the sufficiency of such objection and to observe the alleged harmful bearing of the...
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