Peinhardt v. State
| Decision Date | 24 May 1909 |
| Citation | 161 Ala. 70,49 So. 831 |
| Parties | PEINHARDT v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Cullman County; D. W. Speake, Judge.
Alvin Peinhardt was convicted of arson, and appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions to hold accused to answer new indictment.
The indictment was as follows, omitting the formal parts etc. The proof showed that the defendant and one Lessman were in occupancy of the building alleged to have been burned, under a lease contract with the owner, and that the lease did not expire until some time after the fire.
The following charges were requested by the defendant, and refused: (1) "The court charges the jury that if they believe from the evidence in this case that the defendant and one August Lessman were in the actual occupancy of the premises alleged to have been set on fire, at the time of the fire, under a lease or rental contract, and had the right to remain in the possession until the 1st of March after the fire, then they must find the defendant not guilty." (3) "The court charges the jury that in the offense of arson like the one in this case, the person in actual possession of the premises at the time of the alleged burning is considered in law the owner, and to successfully maintain this prosecution the ownership should have been laid in the indictment in this case in the party or parties in actual possession of the burned premises at the time of the burning and if the indictment alleges the ownership in another, and they believe from the evidence that the person who is alleged as owner in said indictment was not in the actual possession of said premises at the time of the burning, then the verdict must be for the defendant."
George H. Parker and W. W. Callahan, for appellant.
Alexander M. Garber, Atty. Gen., and Thomas W. Martin, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
Arson at the common law, as well as under the statute of this state defining arson in the first degree as it existed prior to the enactment of section 6301 of the Code of 1907, was an offense against the possession rather than the...
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Worrell v. State, 4 Div. 302
...14, Section 24, Code of Alabama 1940; third, Title 14, Section 27, Code of Alabama 1940; Williams v. State, supra. In Peinhardt v. State, 161 Ala. 70, 49 So. 831, the Supreme Court of Alabama held that since arson is an offense under the statute, one cannot commit same except under the circ......
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Abernethy v. State, 5 Div. 413
...be strictly construed and "one cannot commit an offense under a statute except in the circumstances it specifies." Peinhardt v. State, 161 Ala. 70, 49 So. 831, 832 (1909), overruled on other grounds, Williams v. State, 177 Ala. 34, 58 So. 921, 923 (1912). The rules of statutory construction......
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Davis v. State
...of what it prohibits. "[O]ne cannot commit an offense under a statute except in the circumstances it specifies." Peinhardt v. State, 161 Ala. 70, 73, 49 So. 831, 832 (1909), overruled on other grounds by Williams v. State, 177 Ala. 34, 58 So. 921 (1912). "[B]efore there may validly be the i......
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Stafford v. State
...of another; he burns his own dwelling house.' Williams v. State, 177 Ala. 34, 39, 58 So. 921, 922, Ann.Cas.1915A, 584; Peinhardt v. State, 161 Ala. 70, 73, 49 So. 831. Upon this principle, it was held at common law that a tenant or a lessee in possession was not of arson if he burned a dwel......