Hinkle v. The State

• Decision Date: 05 February 1891
• Docket Number: 15,697
• Citation: 26 N.E. 777,127 Ind. 490
• Parties: Hinkle v. The State
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

26 N.E. 777

127 Ind. 490

Hinkle v. The State

No. 15,697

Supreme Court of Indiana

February 5, 1891

Petition for a Rehearing Overruled March 20, 1891.

From the Hamilton Circuit Court.

Judgment affirmed, with costs.

E. F Ritter, G. Shirts and M. Vestal, for appellant.

A. G Smith, Attorney General, D. W. Patty, Prosecuting Attorney, T. J. Kane and T. P. Davis, for the State.

OPINION

Olds, C. J.

The appellant was indicted by the grand jury at the November term, 1889, of the Hamilton Circuit Court, for assault and battery upon one Edith Hinkle.

The appellant filed an answer in abatement, challenging the jurisdiction of the circuit court on the ground of the appellant being the father of the said Edith Hinkle, and at the time of the alleged assault and battery she was about twelve years of age, and was under the custody of her father, the appellant.

It is contended that in such cases the circuit court has no jurisdiction, the jurisdiction having been conferred on justices of the peace, mayors, police judges, and criminal courts by virtue of section 1, of an act approved March 9, 1889. Acts of 1889, p. 363.

A demurrer was filed to this answer and sustained.

In this there was no error. The circuit court has jurisdiction of prosecutions for assault and battery, and the section of the statute referred to does not attempt to deprive the circuit court of such jurisdiction. Indeed said section of the statute does not even confer or attempt to confer jurisdiction of the misdemeanor defined in it on the courts named in the section, but simply provides that upon conviction in such courts the punishment shall be as stated in the section. If the courts named therein do not have jurisdiction of the misdemeanor defined and created independent of the section, it may well be doubted whether such section gives the courts therein named jurisdiction in such prosecutions. If jurisdiction is created by the section it is by mere inference; certainly no jurisdiction of the circuit court is taken or attempted to be taken from it.

The appellant was convicted, and he filed a motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and he excepted and assigns the ruling as error.

The first contention is that the verdict is not sustained by sufficient evidence. We have read and considered the evidence, and we think no good would be accomplished by setting it out in the opinion or by giving a lengthy synopsis of it. It relates to the treatment of a little girl, about twelve years old, by her father fastening her to a sewing-machine by a chain attached to the girl's ankle, and allowing her to remain chained during the day except at meal times and unloosing her at bedtime.

The fact as to the treatment of the child became known; the city officers were informed of it, and she was released by them. When found she was thus chained in the house with her little brother about two or three years old, there being no older person at the house, the father (the appellant) was absent at his work, and his wife, the mother of the little boy and the step-mothe...