State v. Harness, 40934.

• Decision Date: 20 October 1931
• Docket Number: No. 40934.,40934.
• Citation: 238 N.W. 430,214 Iowa 160
• Parties: STATE v. HARNESS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

214 Iowa 160

238 N.W. 430

STATE

v.HARNESS.

No. 40934.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 20, 1931.

Appeal from District Court, Lee County; John E. Craig, Judge.

Charles Harness was indicted by the Grand Jury of Lee County, Iowa, for the crime of murder. The defendant demurred to the indictment, and the demurrer was overruled. The defendant then entered a plea of not guilty, and, upon the issues thus joined, trial to a jury was had resulting in a verdict of manslaughter. The trial court entered judgment on the verdict and imposed sentence upon the defendant to serve a term at Ft. Madison not to exceed eight years, and to pay a fine of $1,000, with costs of the prosecution. Defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

B. F. Jones, of Keokuk, for appellant.

John Fletcher, Atty. Gen., Neill Garrett, Asst. Atty. Gen., J. M. C. Hamilton, Co. Atty., of Fort Madison, and D. J. McNamara, Dep. Co. Atty., of Keokuk, for the State.

DE GRAFF, J.

[1][2] I. The appellant assigns error in that the trial court overruled his demurrer to the indictment. The indictment was drawn under the provisions of the so–called short form of indictment. Section 13734 et seq., chapter 266, Acts of the 43d Gen. Assem. The charging part of the instant indictment alleges that the defendant Harness “willfully, deliberately, premeditatedly and with malice aforethought killed William Carr by shooting him with a revolver etc.” The defendant's contention is that the indictment does not state all of the elements involved in first degree murder, in that there was no intent to kill alleged, and therefore his demurrer should have been sustained.

The constitutionality of the short form indictment is not questioned. Section 2, chapter 266 of the Acts of the 43d Gen. Assem., provide inter alia that an indictment is sufficient if the offense is stated either in terms of the common law or of the statute defining the offense or in terms of substantially the same meaning, so that it is sufficient to give the court and the accused notice of what offense is intended to be charged.

Section 12910, Code 1927, provides that whoever kills a human being with malice aforethought, either express or implied, is guilty of murder. Section 12911 provides that murder in the first degree is any kind of willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing. It follows, therefore, that the only statutory elements of the crime of murder in the first degree are willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation in the killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Measured by the short form of indictment as prescribed by law, the instant indictment complies with all of the requirements and is substantially the language of the statute. It is not contended by the appellant that he was not sufficiently apprised of the charge against him so as to know what offense was intended to be charged. He did not request a bill of particulars, which in legal effect is a more specific statement of the details of the offense charged. Section 4, chapter 266, Acts of the 43d Gen. Assem. The defendant merely relied upon an abstract proposition in which he claimed that the indictment should allege the element of intentional killing. It may be observed that the short form of indictment, as provided in section 12, chapter 266 of the Acts of the 43d Gen. Assem., provides that an indictment need not contain an allegation of the intent with which an act is done, unless such allegation is necessary to charge the offense under section 2 of said chapter. As heretofore pointed out, all that the law requires is that the indictment should be couched in language having substantially the same meaning as the statute defining the offense, and that the statute in this case does not contain the word “intent” in any form. The law relative to the form of indictments is procedural in character, and no substantial right of the defendant is affected by the procedure in the case at bar. See, People v. Stevenson, 103 Cal. App. 82, 284 P. 487. We hold that the instant indictment conforms to the requirements of the law. The trial court, therefore did not err in overruling the defendant's demurrer thereto.

[3] II. The appellant also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, and states as a proposition that the trial court should have sustained his motion for a directed verdict made at the close of the state's testimony, which motion was renewed upon the conclusion of all the testimony. The instant motion is in legal effect an application to the court to withdraw from the consideration of the jury the crime of murder in the first degree. The motion of the defendant was to direct the jury to find the defendant not guilty and for the reason that the evidence is “incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and that it is incompetent under the indictment returned in this case to show first degree murder in that the indictment does not charge the defendant with intent to commit murder * * * and the evidence given on behalf of the state on this indictment, as it now stands, is insufficient to sustain first degree murder and the...