Kearney v. State

• Decision Date: 08 March 1877
• Citation: Kearney v. State, 46 Md. 422 (Md. 1877)
• Parties: EDWARD KEARNEY v. STATE OF MARYLAND.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

46 Md. 422

EDWARD KEARNEY v. STATE OF MARYLAND.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

March 8, 1877

APPEAL from the Criminal Court of Baltimore City.

The appellant was indicted in the Court below, for receiving United States five-twenty bonds knowing them to have been stolen. A demurrer to the indictment was overruled by the Court, (GILMOR, J.,) and the case proceeded to a trial, and resulted in a verdict of guilty. Before any judgment was rendered the traverser appealed.

The cause was argued before BARTOL, C.J., BRENT, GRASON, MILLER ALVEY and ROBINSON, J.

Frank X. Ward and R. Stockett Mathews, for the appellant.

A Leo Knott and C.J. M. Gwinn, Attorney General for the appellee.

ALVEY J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

The motion to dismiss the appeal in this case must prevail.

There was no bill of exception taken in the trial of the cause, as authorized by the Act of 1872, ch. 316. An appeal is given by that Act in criminal cases, but only from rulings and determinations of the Court in the course of the trial as is practiced in civil cases. But where bills of exceptions are taken, and an appeal is prosecuted under the Act, the final judgment is required to be withheld or suspended until the question presented by the bills of exceptions are decided by the Court of Appeals. As no exceptions were taken no appeal lies under the Act; the right of appeal under that statute being confined exclusively to the cases where exceptions are taken in the course of the trial. In this case, the ruling from which the appeal is taken was made in overruling a demurrer to the indictment, which was not the subject of a bill of exception, and therefore not within the provisions of the Act of 1872, ch. 316. That ruling could, properly, only be reviewed on writ of error,...