Sprouse v. Commonwealth

• Citation: 81 Va. 374
• Parties: SPROUSE v. THE COMMONWEALTH.
• Decision Date: 21 January 1886
• Court: Supreme Court of Virginia

81 Va. 374

SPROUSE v. THE COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

January 21, 1886

Error to judgment of the judge of the circuit court of Albemarle county refusing to award a writ of error and supersedeas to judgment of county court of said county, rendered August 8, 1885, on a verdict of a jury on an indictment against John W. Sprouse (plaintiff in error) for forgery, finding him guilty thereof, and fixing the period of his imprisonment in the penitentiary at two years.

Opinion states the facts.

Davis & Harman, for plaintiff in error.

Attorney-General R. A. Ayers, for the Commonwealth.

OPINION

LACY J.

The plaintiff in error was indicted in the county court of Albemarle county for the forgery of a check and the endorsement thereon, and the altering the said check and the endorsement thereon.

The indictment contained two counts. The first count charged the forgery of the check and the endorsement, and the second charged the altering of both. Upon the trial the accused moved the court to quash the indictment; which motion the court overruled, and the accused pleaded not guilty, was convicted, and sentenced to be confined in the penitentiary two years. Upon application to the circuit court of said county a writ of error was refused by said court; whereupon on the petition of the plaintiff in error, a writ of error was granted to this court by one of the judges.

The first assignment of error here is to the ruling of the county court in refusing to quash the indictment. That the said indictment is double and presents a case of duplicity in pleading; that the forgery of the check was one offence, and the forgery of the endorsement was another offence, and that two distinct offences were contained in the same count; that the forgery of the check alone was an indictable offence. Citing Perkins' Case, 7 Gratt. 651. The forgery of the endorsement was an indictable offence. Citing Powell's Case, 11 Gratt. 822. And that the said second count is liable to the same objection, and is equally defective.

Duplicity, or double pleading, consists in alleging for one single purpose or object, two or more distinct grounds of complaint, when one of them would be as effectual in law as both, or all. This is a fault in all pleading, because it produces useless prolixity, and tends to confusion, and to the multiplication of issues. This, however, is only a fault in form. The criminal law does not permit the joinder of two or more offences in one count.

We must consider what are two or more distinct offences within the rule just stated. It is not an objection to an indictment that a part of the allegations might be lopped off and the indictment remain sufficient; and, although the charge might be branched out into two offences, if the whole be but parts of one fact of endeavor, all the parts may be stated together. Of this, there are familiar illustrations. An accused might be charged with selling the different kinds of liquor contrary to law; the sale of each kind would be an indictable offence, yet an indictment setting forth a violation of the law in selling all could not be said to charge several distinct offences. A man may be indicted for the battery of two or more persons in the same count, yet the battery of each was an offence; yet they may be charged together, because they are but parts of one endeavor--the offence against the Commonwealth being the breach of the peace. Or a libel upon two or more persons, when the publication is one single act, may be charged in one count without rendering it bad for duplicity under the rule stated above. Or in robbery, with having assaulted two persons, and stolen from one one sum of money, and from the other a different sum, if it was all one transaction. Or where two make an...