State ex rel. Welch v. Sloan

• Decision Date: 06 April 1886
• Citation: 27 N.W. 616,65 Wis. 647
• Parties: STATE EX REL. WELCH v. SLOAN, JUDGE.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

65 Wis. 647

27 N.W. 616

STATE EX REL. WELCH

v.SLOAN, JUDGE.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Filed April 6, 1886.

Certiorari.

C. S. Carter, for relator.

H. W. Chynoweth, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

TAYLOR, J.

This is a writ of certiorari issued out of this court to review the proceedings had before the respondent, as a circuit judge, upon a writ of habeas corpus issued by said judge in favor of the relator. On the return of said writ it appeared that the relator was imprisoned in the state prison at Waupun upon the final judgment of the circuit court of Calumet county, in a criminal action of the state against said Welch upon an information for murder. It appeared that the relator was arrested and pleaded not guilty to said information, and upon the trial the jury rendered a verdict by which they found the defendant “guilty of murder as charged in the information against him,” and upon this verdict the said court rendered judgment that the relator be imprisoned in the state prison at Waupun for his natural life. Upon the hearing the circuit judge remanded the prisoner, and, to review the proceedings and order of the circuit judge upon said writ of habeas corpus, the writ of certiorari was issued out of this court.

Upon the hearing upon the return to the writ of certiorari made by the said respondent it was urged by the learned counsel for the relator that the circuit court of Calumet county had no authority or jurisdiction to pronounce the judgment it did, in the case of the state against the relator, and consequently the judgment of the circuit court showed no lawful cause for the imprisonment of the relator, and he should have been discharged. The grounds of this contention were-- First, that the information in the action pending in Calumet county did not charge the relator with the crime of murder in the first degree, and therefore the court had no jurisdiction to pass a sentence punishing the relator for that crime; and, second, if the information was sufficient to sustain a conviction for murder in the first degree, still the verdict of the jury did not find him guilty of that specific crime, and therefore there was no authority or jurisdiction in the court to pronounce the judgment it did in the case

The first objection raised by the learned counsel for the relator we do not think well taken. The information in the action against the relator in the circuit court of Calumet county was in the form prescribed by section 4660, Rev. St. 1878, which reads as follows: “In indictments or informations for murder or manslaughter it shall not be necessary to set forth the manner in which, or the means by which, the death of the deceased was caused, but it shall be sufficient in any indictment or information for murder to charge that the accused did willfully, feloniously, and of malice aforethought kill and murder the deceased; and in any indictment or information for manslaughter it shall be sufficient to charge that the accused did feloniously kill and slay the deceased.” The validity of this section, so far as it prescribes what shall be a sufficient information in charging the crime of murder, was considered by this court in the case of Hogan v. State, 30 Wis. 428-441; and this court held in that case that an indictment or information in the form prescribed by said section was sufficient to and did charge the defendant with murder in the first degree, as well as in the second and third degrees, and that said section was not a violation of article 1, § 7, of the constitution. The correctness of the decision in the Hogan Case has not been questioned in this court since it was pronounced, and we are not convinced by the arguments of the learned counsel for the relator in this case that the decision of the court in Hogan v. State was wrong, and ought now to be reversed after having stood as the law for over 15 years. The information in the case at bar being sufficient to charge the defendant with the crime of murder in the first degree, the circuit court had authority, under such information, to sentence the defendant to imprisonment for life in the state prison upon a verdict of the jury convicting the defendant of that crime.

The second point made by the learned counsel for the relator is that, the verdict being a general verdict by which the jury found the defendant “guilty of the crime of murder as charged in the information against him,” such verdict was irregular, and...