State v. Couch

• Decision Date: 07 July 1939
• Docket Number: No. 36458.,36458.
• Citation: 130 S.W.2d 529
• Parties: STATE v. COUCH.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

130 S.W.2d 529

STATE v. COUCH.

No. 36458.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

July 7, 1939.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Mississippi County; Frank Kelly, Judge.

Elmer Couch was convicted of knowingly, willfully, and feloniously obstructing, resisting, and opposing a sheriff and deputy sheriff in the service and execution of legal process, a warrant of commitment to jail, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Roy McKittrick, Atty. Gen., and Tyre W. Burton, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

COOLEY, Commissioner.

Appellant was charged by information filed in the Circuit Court of Mississippi County with having knowingly, willfully and feloniously obstructed, resisted and opposed a sheriff and deputy sheriff in the service and execution of legal process, a warrant of commitment to jail. He was tried and convicted and, pursuant to the verdict of the jury, was sentenced to three months imprisonment in the county jail and to pay a fine of $100, and has appealed. No bill of exceptions was filed and we have for review only the record proper. Appellant has filed no brief in this court.

The information was drawn under Sec. 3897, R.S.1929, Mo.St.Ann. § 3897, p. 2747. It charges in substance that on a day named one Scott filed complaint under oath with W. D. Cain, a justice of the peace of a named township in said county, charging appellant with having feloniously operated a motor vehicle while in an intoxicated condition (a felony); that said justice thereupon issued his warrant, directed to the sheriff, commanding the arrest of appellant and his production before the justice, setting out the warrant; that the deputy sheriff executed the warrant by apprehending appellant and taking him before the justice, who set a date for preliminary hearing and fixed the amount of bond for appellant's appearance on said date at $500, which bond appellant failed to give, and the justice thereupon ordered him committed to jail to await said preliminary hearing and issued a warrant of commitment which is set out in the information; that said warrant was delivered to the deputy sheriff, who, acting thereunder and in his official capacity, undertook to execute the same and to take appellant to jail. The information then charges with particularity that appellant, with full knowledge of the premises, unlawfully, forcibly, knowingly, willfully and feloniously obstructed and opposed said deputy sheriff in the execution of said process by fighting, striking and beating him until the...