Shaffer v. State
| Decision Date | 25 February 1885 |
| Docket Number | 12,160 |
| Citation | 100 Ind. 365 |
| Parties | Shaffer v. The State |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Wabash Circuit Court.
The judgment is affirmed, with costs.
B. M Cobb, for appellant.
F. T Hord, Attorney General, C. R. Pence, Prosecuting Attorney and W. B. Hord, for the State.
On the 24th day of October, 1881, an indictment was duly returned into the Huntington Circuit Court, charging, in substance, that the appellant, on the 14th day of February, 1881, at the county of Huntington, by means of certain alleged false pretences, stated in detail, falsely and fraudulently obtained and procured of and from one Cyrus E. Bryant the sum of thirty dollars in money, etc. Thereafter, at the same term of the court, upon the appellant's application, the venue of the cause was changed to the Wabash Circuit Court. Afterwards, on the 25th day of September, 1882, the appellant appeared in person and by counsel, and, having waived an arraignment, for his plea to the indictment, said that he was guilty as therein charged. The transcript then contains an order-book entry in the case as follows:
The cause was then continued from term to term, without any further action therein, until the September term, 1884, of the court below. The transcript then shows, under date of September 22d, 1884, the court then ordered a bench-warrant to be issued for the appellant, which was done; that the appellant then appeared in person and by counsel, and it was agreed in open court that he was twenty-one years of age when he entered his plea of guilty herein, on September 25th, 1882. Thereupon appellant moved the court in writing for his discharge, which motion was overruled, and he excepted. His motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were severally overruled by the court, and exceptions were duly saved to each of these rulings. The court then pronounced judgment and sentence against the appellant, upon and in accordance with its finding, made almost two years before that time, to wit, on September 25th, 1882, and charged the sheriff of Wabash county with the execution of such sentence, to all of which appellant at the time excepted.
Several errors are assigned by the appellant upon the record of this cause, but of these only two are discussed here by his counsel, namely: 1. The overruling of appellant's motion for his discharge; and, 2. The overruling of his motion in arrest of judgment. These two errors we will consider in the order of their statement, and the other assigned errors will be regarded as waived.
1. Appellant's motion for his discharge was in writing, and the reason assigned therein for his discharge was that the order-book entry in the case, of the date of September 25th 1882, heretofore copied in this opinion, was in fact the judgment of the court against him, by which he was still content to abide, and that such judgment was in full force, unreversed and unappealed from; wherefore he said that the court had no authority to alter, amend or change such judgment. The entire argument of appellant's counsel, in discussing the error under consideration, proceeds upon the ground stated in the motion, that the order-book entry referred to was in fact the judgment of the court in this cause, and that the proceedings of the court thereafter had, on September 22d, 1884, were erroneous and could not be sustained, solely for the reason that they were an attempted alteration, amendment or change of such judgment, after the term at which it was rendered. We fail to...
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