State v. Court Of Special Sessions Of Essex County., 1.
| Decision Date | 24 July 1944 |
| Docket Number | No. 1.,1. |
| Parties | STATE v. COURT OF SPECIAL SESSIONS OF ESSEX COUNTY. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Joseph Waters was sentenced to a term in prison on his plea of non-vult to an information charging him with bringing stolen property into the state, and he brings error.
Affirmed.
May term, 1944, before BROGAN, C. J., and DONGES and PERSKIE, JJ.
Robert Queen, of Trenton, for prosecutor Waters.
William A. Wachenfeld, of Newark, Prosecutor of the Pleas, and C. William Caruso, of Newark, Sp.Asst. Prosecutor, for the State.
Plaintiff in error, Joseph Waters, was sentenced to a term in prison on his plea of non-vult to an information filed by the prosecutor of the pleas of Essex County. The charge against him was that of bringing stolen property into this state, a misdemeanor by R.S. 2:145-15, N.J.S.A. Criminal complaint being made against him before a Magistrate, Waters waived indictment and trial by jury and requested an immediate trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The prosecutor presented the information. The defendant entered a plea of non-vult.
The defendant sued out a writ of error and on the appeal challenges the sufficiency of the information. The claim is that it does not charge a crime under the cited statute. The state contends that the plaintiff in error may not attack the information for the first time on writ of error, the sufficiency of the allegation not having been challenged in the court below. We do not agree with this contention. Even after the plea of guilty it is open to the defendant on writ of error to challenge the indictment (or information) on the ground that the indictment does not charge a crime. Compare State v. Czarnicki, 124 N.J.L. 43, 46, 10 A.2d 461. And such right persists even if advanced for the first time on appeal in the court of last resort. For if the indictment or information be deficient in any essential then it is an error of law on the face of the record.
The statute under which the defendant was charged, supra, provides: ‘Any person who, having at any place without this state stolen the property of another or received such property knowing it to have been stolen, brings the same into this state, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.'
The present information alleges that the said Waters and one Greenberg, on the 9th day of March, 1943, ‘* * * knowing that $10,000 had been stolen from John Doe, did receive the same knowing it to have been stolen, and brought the said money, the property of John Doe, into the City of Newark, County of Essex and State of New Jersey, in violation of R.S. 2:145-15.'
The point made by the plaintiff in error is that the information is defective in that it does not contain the allegation that the property brought into this state by him was stolen outside the State of New Jersey, and that such omission is fatal. The statute, if an offense against it is to be established, requires these essentials, viz.: that the property shall have been stolen...
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