Smith v. The State
| Decision Date | 17 October 1890 |
| Docket Number | 15,636 |
| Citation | 25 N.E. 598,125 Ind. 440 |
| Parties | Smith v. The State |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Clinton Circuit Court.
Judgment reversed, with instructions to sustain the motion to quash the second count of the indictment.
D. S Holman, T. H. Palmer and W. F. Palmer, for appellant.
The appellant was indicted by the grand jury of the Clinton Circuit Court for the crime of subornation of perjury. The indictment was in two counts. The appellant moved the court to quash each count of the indictment. The court sustained the motion to quash the first count, and overruled it as to the second. The appellant pleaded not guilty, and the cause was submitted to a jury and a trial had resulting in a verdict of guilty, and the court overruled a motion for a new trial, and sentenced the appellant. Exceptions were reserved to the ruling of the court.
The second count of the indictment is as follows: "The grand jurors aforesaid, on their oaths aforesaid, do further present and say that on the 11th day of October, 1889, at the county of Clinton and in the State of Indiana, one Mary E. Packer was then and there pregnant with a bastard child; that one George W. Smith was then and there the father of said bastard child; that said George W. Smith did, at the county of Clinton, in the State of Indiana, on the 11th day of October, 1889, and on divers other days and times, at said county and State, then and there feloniously, wilfully and corruptly suborn, incite and procure the said Mary E. Packer to go into the county of Tippecanoe, in said State, and take, subscribe and swear to the following affidavit, to wit:
'State of Indiana, Tippecanoe County,
ss:
'Before Noah Justice, justice of the peace in and for Fairfield township.
'The State of Indiana, on the relation of Mary E. Packer, vs. Asher Arnold.
Complaint.
'Mary E. Packer complains of Asher Arnold, and says that she is pregnant with a bastard child, and that Asher Arnold is the father of said child.
Mary E. Packer.
'Subscribed and sworn to before me this 11th day of October, 1889.
William C. Mitchell,
'Notary Public.' [Seal.]
"That said affidavit was so sworn to, and said oath so taken by said Mary E. Packer on said 11th day of October, 1889, in the county of Tippecanoe, in said State, before one William C. Mitchell, a notary public in and for said county and State, who then and there had full power and competent authority to administer said oath; that said oath was then and there so taken by said Mary E. Packer, she, the said Mary E. Packer, having been so, on said 11th day of October, 1889, and on divers other days before that time in said county of Clinton, in said State of Indiana, incited, suborned and procured so to do by said George W. Smith as aforesaid; that it was then and there, to wit, on the 11th day of October, 1889, and at the county of Clinton in said State, a matter material to the point in question who was the father of said bastard child with which said Mary E. Packer was then and there pregnant; that a lawful oath or affirmation was then and there required by law to determine the paternity of said bastard child; that said Mary E. Packer did then and there, on her oath as aforesaid, in said affidavit as aforesaid, before said notary public as aforesaid, feloniously, wilfully, corruptly and falsely swear that one Asher Arnold was the father of said bastard child with which she, the said Mary E. Packer, was then and there pregnant, when in truth and in fact, as both the said Mary E. Packer and the said George W. Smith, and each of them, then and there well knew, the said Asher Arnold was not the father of said bastard child, and therefore the grand jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, say that said oath was then and there so procured, suborned and incited to be made by the said Mary E. Packer, by the persuasion, procurement and subornation then and there made by said George W. Smith, and that said oath so made was then and there false and corrupt, in this, to wit, that said Asher Arnold was not then and there the father of said bastard child, contrary to the form of the statute in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the State of Indiana." The indictment was properly signed by the prosecuting attorney, and endorsed a true bill, and signed by the foreman of the grand jury.
Section 2008, R. S. 1881, provides that "Whoever suborns or procures any person to commit perjury is guilty of subornation of perjury." Under this...
To continue reading
Request your trial