Peeples v. State

• Decision Date: 20 October 1903
• Citation: 46 Fla. 101,35 So. 223
• Parties: PEEPLES v. STATE. [*]
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

35 So. 223

46 Fla. 101

PEEPLES v. STATE. ^[*]

Florida Supreme Court, Division B.

October 20, 1903

Error to Circuit Court, De Soto County; Joseph B. Wall, Judge.

Joseph H. Peeples was convicted of cattle stealing, and brings error. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

1. A special or extra term provided by law for the circuit courts in this state is a term other than and separate and distinct from the regular spring and fall terms of these courts. The order of a circuit judge calling such a term, but designating it as an adjourned term, is not vitiated by the misnomer, nor is the term of court held in pursuance of the order thereby rendered illegal, and without authority of law.

2. The statutory provisions for procuring jurors in advance of a term of the circuit court, compliance with which requires action by the court officials at least 15 days in advance of the term, do not by implication forbid the calling of a special term of such court within less than 15 days from the date of the order. If circumstances demand that a term be held at an earlier date, jurors therefor may be procured as in other cases where none have been previously drawn or summoned.

3. An order made at a regular term of the circuit court that a special term of the court in that county be held in the week following that fixed, for the convenience of the court, in the next county, is not illegal, as ordering a term to be held in one county at a time fixed by law for holding court in another.

4. An indictment indorsed, 'A true bill. Robert C. Hendry Foreman,' and, 'Filed March 25th, 1903. H. E Carlton, Clerk, by J. J. Granger, D. C.,' and as to which the minutes recite that 'the grand jury came into open court and presented the following indictment, to wit, State of Florida vs. Joseph H. Peeples, larceny of a domestic animal. A true bill'--is sufficiently shown by the record to have been found or returned by the grand jury.

5. In an indictment for larceny the description of the property charged to have been stolen as 'one bull, and of the goods and chattels and property of one Hooker Parker,' is not so vague and indefinite as to require a quashal of the indictment.

6. Section 2803 of the Revised Statutes of 1892, which provides that all the provisions of law covering the qualifications disqualifications, exemptions, drawing, etc., of petit jurors shall apply to grand jurors, is not to be construed as making all grounds of challenge to the favor applicable to a petit juror grounds of disqualification of a grand juror.

7. The only grounds of challenge to the favor applicable to grand jurors in this state are those provided for by section 2810 Rev. St. 1892.

COUNSEL Sparkman & Carter and John H. Treadwell, for plaintiff in error.

J. B. Whitfield, Atty. Gen., for the State.

OPINION

MAXWELL J.

The plaintiff in error was indicted, tried, and convicted at a so-called 'adjourned term' of the circuit court in and for De Soto county of the crime of cattle stealing. The first question presented by the record for out consideration is that of the authority to hold the term of court at which the conviction was had.

At the regular spring term of the court on March 12, A. D. 1903, the judge made the following order: 'It being made to appear to the judge of this court that it is expedient to hold an adjourned term of said court, it is therefore ordered that an adjourned term of said court is hereby called to be held in and for said county of De Soto, beginning on the 23d day of March A. D. 1903, at 10 o'clock a. m.' On the 17th day of March the regular spring term of court was held in Polk county in the same circuit, and on the 23d day of March the court convened again in De Soto county in pursuance of its previous order, and the case of the plaintiff in error was disposed of as above stated.

The only terms of the circuit court provided for by statute are the regular spring and fall terms, and such extra or special terms as may be called under section 1373, Rev. St. 1892. The contention of the plaintiff in error is that this so-called adjourned term was none of these, and that the court was consequently without authority to act, and its judgments illegal and void.

It is an open question whether, as a continuation of the same term in any county, a court may adjourn to a day subsequent to the convening of the same court in another county. It has been held by several courts that a term in one county terminates upon the arrival of the date fixed by law for the convening of the same court elsewhere; but there is nothing in the statutes of this state limiting a term to a continuous sitting not interrupted by the holding of a term in another county, and by several courts it has been held that by special order a term may be adjourned over until after the sitting of the court in another place. State v. Van Auken, 98 Iowa, 674, 68 N.W. 454; State of Florida v. Charlotte Harbor Phosphate Co., 70 F. 883, 17 C. C. A. 472; State v. Rogers, 56 Kan. 362, 43 P. 256; Kingsley v. Bagby, 2 Kan. App. 23, 41 P. 991.

We need not determine, however, the right of the court to adjourn its regular spring term to a day subsequent to a term to be held in the next county, for it is evident that the court below attempted nothing of that kind. Its order did not purport to adjourn the then pending term to March 23d, but ordered that an adjourned term be called for that day. The minutes of the court for that day do not purport to be a record of the spring term, nor of an adjourned session of that term, but are headed 'Adjourned term March 23rd, 1903,' and recite that court had convened 'pursuant to an order calling said adjourned term.' The court then ordered a venire for both grand and petit jurors, as is usual at the beginning of term, and the minutes recite that the petit jurors were 'selected to serve as petit jurors for the first week of the present term.' Plainly, then, the so-called adjourned term was a separate and distinct term of the court, and not a continuation of the spring term. Harris v. Gest, 4 Ohio St. 470. It was in fact an extra or special term, as provided for in section 1373, Rev. St. 1892. An 'extra or special term' is merely a term other than the regular spring or fall term, and such a term does not lose its character as such merely because the order calling it designates it an adjourned term, if it appears that it is a term distinct from the regular terms of the court. As was said in Mattingly v. Darwin, 23 Ill. 618: 'The statute requires no set form of words to be used by the circuit judge to make a valid appointment of a special term. Any form clearly indicating the purpose of the circuit judge to appoint a special term, and using words adequate to convey such idea clearly, is sufficient to make the appointment a valid one. * * * It is true he does not call it a special term of the court, nor was in necessary that he should so designate it. The law fixed its character as a special term, no matter what it might be called by the circuit judge. A misnomer by him could not vitiate the appointment. By calling it an adjourned or postponed or regular term would not make it so. He might call it either, or by any other name, or not give it any designation, and it would still be a special term and nothing else.'

It is urged, however, that this cannot be held a valid special term of the court, because but 11 days intervened between the order that it be held and the date of its commencement, while the statutes providing for the drawing and summoning of jurors in advance of a term of court to serve thereat require action by the officers of the court at least 15 days before the beginning of the term; that the provision for calling special terms of the court is to be construed in connection with this statute, which by implication forbids the calling of a special term within less than 15 days from the date of the order that it be held. If there...