Romans v. State

• Decision Date: 14 November 1940
• Docket Number: 2,3.
• Citation: 16 A.2d 642,178 Md. 588
• Parties: ROMANS v. STATE. HORAN v. SAME.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

16 A.2d 642

178 Md. 588

ROMANS v. STATE.

HORAN v. SAME.

Nos. 2, 3.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

November 14, 1940

Appeals from Criminal Court of Baltimore City; Emory H. Niles, Judge.

William B. Romans and Edna M. Horan were convicted of obstructing justice, and they appeal separately.

Judgments affirmed.

Eldridge Hood Young, of Baltimore (Charles F. Rheb and Young & Crothers, all of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellants.

Robert E. Clapp, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. (William C. Walsh, Atty Gen., and J. Bernard Wells, State's Atty. for Baltimore City, William H. Maynard, Deputy State's Atty. for Baltimore City, and Anselm Sodaro, Asst. State's Atty for Baltimore City, all of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and PARKE, SLOAN, MITCHELL, JOHNSON, and DELAPLAINE, JJ.

PARKE Judge.

The separate appeals of William B. Romans and of Edna M. Horan are from the several judgment which imposed sentences upon them after their joint trial and a finding of guilty by the court, sitting as a jury.

The first question for review is the action of the court in overruling the demurrer of Edna M. Horan to the indictment. The demurrer was to the indictment and every one of its five counts. The traverser argues that the counts are duplicitous. If so, the vice would make the counts bad. The State maintains a single offense is charged in violation of Section 30 of Art. 27 of the Code (1939) whereby it is provided: 'If any person shall corruptly or by threats or force endeavor to influence, intimidate or impede any juror, witness or officer in any court of this State in the discharge of his duty, or shall corruptly or by threats or force obstruct or impede, or endeavor to obstruct or impede, the due administration of justice therein, he shall be liable to be prosecuted therefor by indictment, and shall on conviction thereof be punished by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding three months, or both, according to the nature and aggravation of the offense.'

The statute is in aid and definition of a class of those criminal acts which are known to the common law as obstructions of justice. The words of the statute are general and embrace in comprehensive terms various forms of obstruction. Thus the particular acts are not specified but, whatever they may be, if the acts be corrupt, or be threats or force, used in an attempt to influence, intimidate or impede any juror, witness or officer in any court of the State in the discharge of his duty, there is an obstruction of justice. Likewise, if by acts of similar quality and nature the due administration of justice in any court shall either be impeded or obstructed or be so attempted, there is an obstruction of justice. Furthermore, it is quite clear that the corrupt act, or one of threat or force, employed to influence or intimidate or impede any such juror, witness or officer in the discharge of his duty in a court, must necessarily be, also, an endeavor to obstruct or impede in such court the due administration of justice. The fact that the act denounced is at once an attempt within the meaning of both clauses of the section of the statute forbidding certain obstructions to justice does not make the forbidden act two offences against the sovereign State. Where in this statute the acts particularly denounced are of necessity wholly within the limits of the acts generally denounced, two offences do not arise from the same act, although it may be dealt with here under alternate provisions as an obstruction to justice.

With this construction of the statute in mind, the indictment will next be examined with reference to its form and content.

After a due and particular recital of the pendency in the Criminal Court of Baltimore of an indictment for a criminal abortion, the imminency of the trial of the accused, and that one Helen Shray was a witness for the State in that prosecution, the indictment charged in apt terms that the traversers, with full knowledge of these facts unlawfully and corruptly did attempt, in the first count, did conspire with each other, in the second, and with each other and with certain other persons to the jurors unknown, in the third, to obstruct and impede the due administration of justice in said court in said case by corruptly attempting and endeavoring 'to influence a certain witness, to wit, Helen Shray, in the discharge of her duty as such witness in said cause, in said court, by attempting and endeavoring to influence the said witness, to wit, the said Helen Shray, to leave the City of Baltimore, and to remain away from the City of Baltimore until after the trial of the said cause in said court.'

The fourth court of the indictment charges a conspiracy of the traversers, and the fifth count one of the traversers and certain other persons to the jurors unknown, and both in the manner of the second and third counts, with the difference that the last two counts do not contain the accusation of unlawfully confederating to obstruct and impede the due administration of justice by endeavoring to influence the witness to leave the jurisdiction of the court, and remain away, but directly charge the unlawful conspiracy to be 'to influence, intimidate and impede' the witness Shray in the discharge of her duty as witness by endeavoring to influence the said witness to depart and not to return until after the trial of the case.

The first count concludes with the declaration that the charge is 'contrary to the form of the Act of Assembly in such case made and provided and against the peace, government and dignity of the State' while the other four counts do not state that the crime is against the statutory law. If the prosecution is pursuant to the statute, it is not necessary now so to aver in order to make the statute applicable. Code (1939) Art. 27, sec. 650. Whether considered in respect of the statute or of the common law, the counts of the indictment are good, unless bad because of duplicity. See Bishop on Criminal Law, 9th Ed., vol. 1, sec. 468; Bishop's New Criminal Procedure, vol. 1, sec. 897; Bishop's Directions and Forms, sec. 852; 13 Ency. of Forms of Pl. & Pr. pp. 336-340; Com. v. Reynolds, 14 Gray, Mass., 87, 74 Am.Dec. 665; State v. Holt, 84 Me. 509, 24 A. 951; State v. Ames, 64 Me. 386.

A count is double if it charges the traverser with two or more offences. It is urged here that the counts at bar have this vice. The court does not agree with this contention. Every one of the several counts is a statement of the offence followed by the particulars of the offence in plain and unambiguous language so as to give, without repugnancy, the accused person reasonable information of the nature of a single charge. More than this is not here necessary. The circumstance that the offence stated may come within either the particular and general terms of the denunciation of a criminal statute does not split the offence into separate offences. On this record no count is repugnant in its statement as plainly but a single offence is charged. See Foxwell v. State, 146 Md. 90, 92, 125 A. 893; Mohler v. State, 120 Md. 325, 327, 328, 87 A. 671; Jackson v. State, 176 Md. 399, 401, 402, 5 A.2d 282; 2 Archbold's Criminal Practice and Pleading, 95, 96 (star); Com. v. Tuck, 20 Pick., Mass., 356; Rex v. Fuller, 1 B. & P. 181, 187; 126 Eng.Reprint, 847, 851; Hochheimer's Crim.Law, 2d Ed., sec. 403; Bishop on Criminal Law, 9th Ed., vol. II, sec. 1012a.

The several counts of the indictment designated the accused as 'William B. Romans and Isabelle Romans otherwise called Dolly Horan otherwise called Mrs. Warfield otherwise called Edna M. Horan, late of' Baltimore City.

The demurrer mentioned was filed on November 29, 1939, in the name of 'Dolly Horan (referred to by the State in the Indictment as Dolly Horan, alias Mrs. Warfield, alias Edna M. Horan)' by her attorney, and overruled on the same day. A bench warrant had been previously issued on the presentment for the arrest of Isabelle Romans, and a person by that name was arrested and gave bail to answer the charge. No alias appears in this first writ, but after the indictment was found a warrant of arrest was issued for 'Isabelle Romans, alias Dolly Horan alias Mrs. Warfield alias Edna Mr. Horan'. Edna M. Horan, one of the traversers, was arrested under this writ and gave bail. In her demurrer Edna M. Horan admitted that she was charged by the indictment with the offence, but stated that identity of the accused was unknown because 'Isabelle Romans and Dolly Horan, two separate individuals, have been charged with the same offence.' She is in error in this statement, as the person accused with William B. Romans is but one woman, who is designated variously as 'Isabelle Romans otherwise called Dolly Horan, otherwise called Mrs. Warfield otherwise called Edna M. Horan, late of said City' of Baltimore.

The accused woman is further identified by the indictment as the woman who acted with the other accused, William B. Romans, in the commission of the crime charged. The two in combination endeavored to induce the prosecuting witness, Helen Shray, to leave the jurisdiction of the court and to remain away until after the trial of one Albert E. MacCrow and William W. Wayne, who were about to be tried for a criminal abortion alleged to have been committed by them upon the witness. These circumstances eliminated every woman except the single one who was charged with participation in the crime. And the witnesses whose names are endorsed on the back of the indictment designated the woman further by giving the various names by which she would be identified. Thus all that remained for complete identification was to produce the woman who fulfilled the given description.

The woman...