Mankin v. State
| Decision Date | 31 December 1852 |
| Citation | 32 Tenn. 206 |
| Parties | MANKIN v. THE STATE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Mankin was tried and convicted of the offence of obstructing a public road, and judgment was accordingly rendered against him in the criminal court of Rutherford county, at its May term, 1852, Turner, judge, presiding; whereupon he appealed in error.
E. A. Keeble, for plaintiff in error;
Attorney-General, for the State.
John Mankin was convicted and fined on an indictment for obstructing a public road, and has appealed in error to this court. On the trial the attorney for the state produced and read in evidence a record from the county court, purporting to lay off and establish the road as a public road, to which defendants below objected.
The record is bad, because it does not appear that there was a competent court to order and appoint a jury of view; nor, again, in the coming in of their report, to confirm the report and establish the road. A competent court for these purposes consists of twelve, or one-third, of the acting justices of the county; but three are competent to appoint overseers of roads. 1804, ch. 1; 1835, ch. 6. The fact of a competent court may appear in the caption of the record, or be recited in the order--as, that twelve, or one-third, of the justices were present. But here there is no caption, and no such recital.
It is also objected that it does not appear that the jury were freeholders, or that they were sworn, except by their own report; in that they say that they were freeholders, and duly sworn. This we think sufficient. If a competent court appear, every presumption is to be made in favor of the regularity and correctness of the proceedings; for it is a court of general and exclusive jurisdiction on the subject of public roads. And when a public road has been established by a competent court, and its judgment therein remains unreversed, it is not competent, in a collateral proceeding like this, to show informalities and defects in the orders taken in the county court to establish it. But the person interested must object to the proceeding when it took place, or otherwise reverse it upon appeal in error. 1811, ch. 3; 1819, ch. 26.
Under this latter act, parol evidence of the public character of the road is made competent to establish the fact prima facie, until the contrary appear by the production of the county-court records; from which it may appear that its action was void...
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