State v. Cleveland

• Citation: 121 N.W. 841,23 S.D. 335
• Parties: STATE v. CLEVELAND.
• Decision Date: 21 May 1909
• Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

23 S.D. 335

121 N.W. 841

STATE

v.CLEVELAND.

Supreme Court of South Dakota.

May 21, 1909.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lyman County.

William M. Cleveland was convicted of grand larceny, and appeals. Affirmed.J. G. Bartine, for appellant.

S. W. Clark, Atty. Gen., Cloyd D. Sterling, Asst. Atty. Gen., and J. F. Carpenter, State's Atty., for the State.

SMITH, J.

William M. Cleveland was convicted of the crime of grand larceny, and brings his case to this court by appeal for review upon a bill of exceptions. The assignment of errors is as follows: “The court erred in admitting testimony, excluding testimony, striking out and in refusing to strike out testimony, all as shown by the assignments of error herein numbered from 1 to 39, inclusive. As contended in the fortieth and forty-first assignments of error, we now claim that the following charge of the court to the jury, in view of the evidence in the case was manifest error. The court instructed as follows: [That part of the charge of the court which follows is then set out in the language used by the court, and will be referred to later herein.]” This assignment of error purports to set forth 39 specific rulings of the trial court upon questions of evidence arising upon the trial, but does not allege any exceptions to any such rulings. The rulings which appellant asks this court to review are nowhere pointed out, except as above stated. Not even the page of the abstract or the page of the bill of exceptions upon which such rulings and exceptions may be found is given in the so-called assignment of errors. In the case of State v. Chapman, 1 S. D. 414, 47 N. W. 411, 10 L. R. A. 432, the assignment of error then before the court was in these words: “In rejecting and admitting evidence on said trial, as more particularly appears by a bill of exceptions.” In that case the errors complained of were pointed out as being found in a “bill of exceptions.” In the case now before this court not even the bill of exceptions is referred to in the assignments. But this court has examined the bill, and finds that it contains nothing purporting to be assignments of error. The bill of exceptions merely discloses rulings and exceptions, numbered from 1 to 39, as they appear consecutively in the bill. This court, in State v. Chapman, supra, refused to consider such an assignment of errors. We think the ruling in that case was right, and shall adhere to it in this case.

The excerpt from the charge of the trial court to the jury, above referred to, is set out in the assignments of error designated as the “fortieth and forty-first assignments of error,” and is in the following language: “By the law of this state, all persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether they directly commit the acts constituting the crime alone or in company with others,or aid or abet in its commission, are guilty as principals; that is, there is no distinction between the person who actually commits the crime and the acts constituting the crime, and those who aid and abet in its commission. They are all principals, and all guilty alike. By aiding and abetting, ...