State v. Hinton

• Decision Date: 22 June 1897
• Docket Number: 12,554
• Citation: 22 So. 617,49 La.Ann. 1354
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE OF LOUISIANA v. LOUIS HINTON

22 So. 617

49 La.Ann. 1354

STATE OF LOUISIANA v. LOUIS HINTON

No. 12,554

Supreme Court of Louisiana

June 22, 1897

Argued June 19, 1897

Rehearing Refused June 29, 1897.

APPEAL from the Twenty-fourth Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Mary. Allen, J.

M. J Cunningham, Attorney General, and Walter B. Gordy, District Attorney, for Plaintiff, Appellee.

Sigur Milling & Sanders, for Defendant, Appellant.

OPINION

MILLER J.

The defendant appeals from the sentence for shooting with intent to murder, and relies on numerous bills of exception.

One of the grounds in arrest of judgment was that the information was filed more than one year after the commission of the offence, and there was no averment sufficient to defeat the prescription applicable to the prosecution. This ground has been earnestly pressed and presents some difficulty. The law prescribes prosecutions for offences including that charged in this case, unless the offence is prosecuted within one year from the time it has been made known to a public officer having authority to direct a public prosecution. Revised Statutes, Sec. 986, amended by Act No. 50 of 1894. It is, of course, essential when one year has elapsed since the offence was committed to insert in the indictment or information the averment to remove the bar of prescription. There has been some discussion as to the burden of proof on such an averment, but the necessity of the averment admits of no dispute. State vs. Barrow, 31 An. 694; State vs. Barfield, 36 An. 89. In this case the allegation is that the aforesaid offence has "just come to the knowledge of an officer having authority to prosecute." It is insisted that this is not sufficient; that non constat the knowledge may have come to other officers with power to direct the prosecution, and the words that the offence had just come to the knowledge of the officer, it is urged, are not equivalent to the averment of the preferring of the information within one year from the time the offence was made known to the public officer or officers. Undoubtedly the averment might have been more formal. State vs. Barrow, 31 An. 693. We are referred to the text writers who distinguish between "immediately" and the greater precision requisite when time is an element of the offence. Again, "then and there," referring to the commission of the offence, can not be substituted by such a word as "immediately." We do not think the same exactness is to be applied to an averment negativing prescription. The word "just," as an adverb of time, is equivalent to "at this moment," or the "least possible time since," as Webster defines the word. Again, to aver that the offence has just come to the knowledge of "an" officer with authority to prosecute implies, we think, that which would be conveyed by the more explicit form of statement, it had not been made known to "any" public officer. Again, it is urged that the word "officer" only is used, not public officer; but that omission is supplied, we think, by the addition, with the authority to prosecute. While we are sensible the averment in this information is open to some objection as to form, we do not think the mode of statement adopted by the pleader furnishes the basis to arrest the judgment.

There were reserved bills of exception to the admissibility of testimony to show that a message was sent to the accused by the manager of the plantation on which the shooting occurred, and exceptions were also reserved to testimony of the character of this message and to the reply the message elicited. We gather from the bills that the messenger was directed to tell the accused, a laborer on the plantation, in substance, to go into the field or leave the plantation; that the accused gave the messenger an impudent answer, and a short time after the shooting occurred. We group the bills dealing with the admissibility of this testimony. It is contended the sending of the message, the direction of the manager to the messenger and his statements to the accused -- i.e., the delivery of the message, were inadmissible against the accused. Some criticism is in the brief of the reasons given by the court for admitting the testimony. But in considering the question raised by the bill we can give weight to the relation the testimony bore to the charge against the accused. The testimony tended to show the circumstances under which the prosecuting witness came into contact with the accused on the morning of the shooting. It placed him in the attitude of bearing a peaceful message from the manager of the plantation to the accused. The jury, we think, were entitled to be placed in possession of the visit of the accused shortly preceding the shooting the subject of investigation and closely connected with it. It better enabled the jury to reach a conclusion. We see no error in the ruling of the court on this point.

The answer of the accused to the message was well calculated, it is urged, to prejudice the accused. It was sent by the negro laborer to a white man -- the manager. It was commented upon it is claimed, to the prejudice of the accused before the jury of white men, and was well calculated to...