State v. Gardner
| Decision Date | 03 November 1920 |
| Docket Number | Criminal 483 |
| Citation | 193 P. 22,21 Ariz. 602 |
| Parties | STATE, Appellant, v. CHARLES GARDNER, Sr., Respondent |
| Court | Arizona Supreme Court |
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of the County of Cochise. Alfred C. Lockwood, Judge. Reversed.
Mr Wiley E. Jones, Attorney General, for the State.
The respondent was charged, in a complaint filed in the justice court, with having wilfully, unlawfully, feloniously and maliciously made an aperture in a wooden pipe-line "with the intent, then and there, to injure the same." On September 2, 1919, the charge was examined into, and the court entered the following order of commitment:
"It appearing to me that the crime of malicious mischief, a felony, to wit, the making of an aperture in a wooden pipe-line, being a pipe of a structure used to conduct the water for agricultural purposes, has been committed, to wit in Lelie Canyon (etc.), Cochise county, state of Arizona, on or about the thirteenth day of April, 1919, and that there is sufficient cause to believe Charles Gardner, Sr., guilty thereof."
The order holding Charles Gardner, Sr., to answer for said crime in the superior court of said county, follows with the usual order fixing bail. The information, so far as is material to this appeal, is as follows:
" . . . Charles Gardner, Sr., accused by the county attorney of Cochise county . . . by this information of the crime of maliciously injuring and cutting a pipe-line, committed as follows: That said Charles Gardner, Sr., on or about the thirteenth day of April, 1919, . . . did then and there willfully, unlawfully, feloniously and maliciously make an aperture in a wooden pipe-line, with intent then and there to injure the same; the said wooden pipe-line being then and there a structure erected and used for the purpose of conducting water for agricultural purposes, . . ." etc.
The defendant filed the following motion to the information:
"Comes now the defendant, and moves the court to set aside the information herein upon the grounds that before the filing thereof the defendant had not been legally committed by a magistrate."
The court first denied the motion. Thereafter, on October 3, 1919, the court granted the motion and set aside the information. From such order, the state has appealed.
The appellant informs us that the defendant, in support of his motion, successfully contended in the lower court that the commitment did not state any crime known to the law. The respondent does not appear, and we will consider the record from the viewpoint suggested by the Attorney General.
The commitment is substantially in the form required by section 885, Penal Code of Arizona of 1913, if it is stated generally therein the nature of the crime for which the defendant is held to answer, and as nearly as may be, the time and place where the same was committed. There is nothing in the office which a commitment is designed to perform, requiring a detailed statement of the circumstances attending the commission of the crime, other than the time and place of the alleged criminal act. It is intended merely as a...
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State v. McDermott
...or one known to the common law, states by reasonable inference all the facts requisite to such offense." (16 C. J. 336; State v. Gardner, 21 Ariz. 602, 193 P. 22; People v. Bianchino, 5 Cal.App. 633, 91 P. People v. Gregory, 8 Cal.App. 738, 97 P. 912.) Without regard to the offense charged ......
- Solice v. State