State v. Eisele

• Citation: 37 Minn. 256
• Parties: STATE OF MINNESOTA <I>vs.</I> BALTHASAR EISELE.
• Decision Date: 21 July 1887
• Court: Supreme Court of Minnesota (US)

Page 256

37 Minn. 256

STATE OF MINNESOTA vs. BALTHASAR EISELE.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 21, 1887.

Appeal by defendant from an order of the district court for Scott county, Macdonald, J., presiding, refusing a new trial, the defendant having been convicted of obstructing a public highway.

E. Southworth, for appellant.

Moses E. Clapp, Attorney General, and H. J. Peck, for the State.

GILFILLAN, C. J.¹

Indictment for a nuisance in obstructing a public street. The state, on the trial, claimed that the land over which the alleged street ran was dedicated by the owner, one Holmes, to public use as a street, and that the dedication was accepted by user on the part of the public. Defendant purchased the land from the heirs of Holmes, and claimed that it never was dedicated as a street; and that was really the only issue at the trial, for on the evidence there was no dispute that for several years the public used it as a street, nor is there any that defendant blocked it up by building a fence across it.

At the opening of the trial the attorney for the state, in answer to a question asked by the court, stated that the only question was whether the land was a public highway; and thereupon defendant objected to the introduction of any evidence on the part of the state, on the ground that proceeding by indictment is not the proper way to try such an issue. There is no rule of law such as is suggested by the objection. A large part of the cases of indictments for obstructing highways have been cases in which the legal existence of the public right was disputed. The existence of such right is an element in the crime charged, which may and must be proved like any other fact necessary to constitute the offence. There was nothing in the objection. If the defendant acted in good faith, and in ignorance of the facts on which the public right was based, it might go to the question of intent; but the objection does not touch that question.

The witnesses who had lots abutting on or near the alleged street were competent to testify to admissions by Holmes, notwithstanding he was dead; for they were in no sense parties to the action, nor were they "interested in the event thereof," within the meaning of Gen. St. 1878, c. 73, § 8. They had no interest other than such as was had by any one of the public at large who might have property incidentally affected by the existence or non-existence of the street. Their interest was the same in kind, though it might...