People v. Griswold
| Decision Date | 03 February 1887 |
| Citation | 31 N.W. 809,64 Mich. 722 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. GRISWOLD. |
Error to Wayne.
James H. Pound, for defendant.
The respondent was prosecuted in the police court in the city of Detroit for stealing $2.75 and a bottle of brandy. On the trial the respondent was convicted. The case was then taken by certiorari to the circuit court for the county of Wayne where the judgment was affirmed. The case is brought into this court by writ of error. The respondent was found guilty on a trial had by jury in the police court. But two questions require consideration in this case.
First was it necessary that the prosecuting attorney should have authorized this prosecution, or that the complaining witnesses should have given security for costs. How.St. � 7135a, was not intended to limit or curtail the jurisdiction of justices of the peace in criminal cases. The object sought to be accomplished by that statute was to guard against the indiscretion, frequently indulged in by magistrates, in permitting legal proceedings to be instituted against parties for crime without any previous inquiry into the circumstances. While an omission to secure an order from the prosecuting attorney before issuing process in criminal cases might subject the magistrate to censure, and possibly in some cases, to pecuniary injury and official embarrassment, it was never intended to deprive the court of jurisdiction in any case; and whether the complaining party has given to the people security for costs in the case is a subject in which the respondent is not especially interested and, if the people are satisfied to prosecute without such security, there is no reason why he should complain. The prosecuting attorney appeared, and prosecuted the respondent before the police court, which is certainly sufficient approval by him.
The second question suggested for our consideration is whether there was or was not sufficient testimony to allow the case to go to the jury upon this question. We have no doubt the police justice ruled correctly upon this point. At the close of the trial before the police court, counsel asked for the defendant's discharge on the ground that the people's testimony did not make out a case against him.
The police justice in his return says ...
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