State v. Goode

• Decision Date: 31 January 1857
• Citation: 24 Mo. 361
• Parties: THE STATE, Plaintiff in Error, v. GOODE, Defendant in Error.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

24 Mo. 361

THE STATE, Plaintiff in Error,

v.GOODE, Defendant in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

January Term, 1857.

1. An indictment was in the following form: “The grand jurors for the State of Missouri, for the body of Putnam county, sworn, upon their oaths present that B. E. G., late of Putnam county aforesaid, on the first day of October, in the year 1855, at the county aforesaid, did then and there unlawfully buy a certain commodity, to-wit: five deer skins, then and there of the value of five dollars, of a certain slave, called John,” etc. Held, that a venue was properly laid to the commission of the offense.

Error to Putnam Circuit Court.

Ewing (attorney-general), for the State.

I. The venue was sufficiently laid. (8 Mo. 283; 10 id. 743; 19 id. 386.)

RYLAND, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

Benjamin E. Goode was indicted by the grand jury of Putnam county, at the October term of the Circuit Court for said county, in the year A. D. 1855, for buying of a certain slave a certain commodity (deer skins) without the consent in writing of the master, owner or overseer of said slave first had and obtained. The defendant appeared to the indictment and moved to quash it for want of venue to the commission of the offense. The court sustained the motion and quashed the indictment; the circuit attorney excepted and brings the case here by writ of error. The indictment is as follows:

“The grand jurors for the State of Missouri, for the body of Putnam county, sworn, upon their oath present that Benjamin E. Goode, late of Putnam county aforesaid, on the first day of October, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and fifty-five, at the county aforesaid, did then and there unlawfully buy a certain commodity, to-wit: five deer skins, then and there of the value of five dollars, of a certain slave, called John, then and there being the property of William B. Jones, of which said slave, called John, he, the said William B. Jones, was then and there and still is the owner, without the consent in writing of the master, owner or overseer of said slave being by him, the said Benjamin E. Goode, then and there first had and obtained then and there, to authorize him, the said Benjamin E. Goode, to then and there buy the commodity aforesaid of the said slave, contrary,” etc.

The defendant's motion to quash was “for the reason that said indictment does not lay any venue to the commission of the offense charged in the indictment.”

There is not the slightest...