State v. Howard

• Citation: 68 N.W. 1096,66 Minn. 309
• Decision Date: 25 November 1896
• Docket Number: 10,178--(56)
• Parties: STATE OF MINNESOTA v. JOHN R. HOWARD
• Court: Supreme Court of Minnesota (US)

68 N.W. 1096

66 Minn. 309

STATE OF MINNESOTA v. JOHN R. HOWARD

Nos. 10,178--(56)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

November 25, 1896

Case certified from district court for Wright county, Smith, J Reversed.

Let the remittitur be sent down at once on the application of the attorney general.

W. E Culkin and Rome G. Brown, for defendant.

H. W Childs, George B. Edgerton, and J. T. Alley, for the State.

START C. J. CANTY, J., concurring.

OPINION

START, C. J.

The defendant demurred to the indictment returned against him by the grand jury of the county of Wright, and filed in the district court of such county on June 16, 1896. The court overruled the demurrer, and certified the case to this court.

Omitting the title, the indictment is in these words:

"John R. Howard is accused by the grand jury of the county of Wright and state of Minnesota, by this indictment, of the crime of bribery of a judicial officer committed as follows:

"On the 9th day of December, A. D. 1895, there was pending for trial in the district court in and for the county of Wright and state of Minnesota, two certain civil cases and actions entitled respectively as follows, to wit, Matthew Czech, plaintiff, against the Great Northern Railway Company, defendant, and Susie Czech, plaintiff, against the Great Northern Railway Company, defendant; and at said time in said county of Wright, the regular general December, 1895, term of said court was in session and each and both of said civil cases and actions were regularly upon the said term calendar for trial, and at said time and place and in said court, each and both of said cases and actions were upon trial together before one of the regular judges of said court and a jury of 12 men, and the name of one of the said jurymen of the said 12 jurymen was then and there one Ernest Otto. That the trial of said cases and actions before said judge and jury began December the 5th, A. D. 1895, and was continued and held during and over December the 9th, 1895, and until December the 10th, A. D. 1895, and that in the matter of the trial of the said cases and actions the said court had full and complete jurisdiction.

"That the said John R. Howard, on the said 9th day of December, A. D. 1895, at the village of Buffalo, in the said county of Wright and state of Minnesota, did wrongfully, unlawfully and feloniously hire, procure and cause one O. L. Billings to offer a bribe and money of value to the said juryman, Ernest Otto, then and there serving on the said jury as aforesaid, with the intent on the part of him the said John R. Howard and him the said O. L. Billings to influence the action, vote, opinion and decision of him, the said juryman, Ernest Otto, as a juryman in said cases and actions, and to cause him the said juryman, Ernest Otto, to hang the said jury and, regardless of his, the said Ernest Otto's convictions in the matters involved in said cases and actions, prevent a verdict being rendered in said cases and actions against said defendant, and that the said O. L. Billings did then and there unlawfully and feloniously offer the said bribe and money to the said juryman, Ernest Otto, for the purpose aforesaid and with the intent aforesaid solely by reason of his being hired, procured and caused to do so by the said John R. Howard, as aforesaid, the said John R. Howard being then and there in the employ of the said defendant in the cases and actions, and at said time and place engaged in assisting the said defendant in and about the trial of said cases and actions, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state of Minnesota."

The section of the Penal Code upon which the indictment is based reads thus:

"Bribery of a Judicial Officer. A person who gives or offers, or causes to be given or offered, a bribe, or any money, property, or value of any kind, or any promise or agreement therefor, to a judicial officer, juror, referee, arbitrator, appraiser, or assessor or other person authorized by law to hear or determine any question, matter, cause, proceeding, or controversy, with intent to influence his action, vote, opinion, or decision thereupon, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than ten years or by fine of not more than five thousand dollars, or both." Pen. Code, § 64 (G. S. 1894, § 6348).

1. The crime attempted to be charged in the indictment is "offering a bribe to a juror," or, strictly speaking, causing a bribe to be offered to a juror. In the commencement of the indictment the crime is designated as "bribery of a judicial officer." This discrepancy is the first objection to the indictment urged by the defendant. An error in designating the name of the crime in the commencement of the indictment is an irregularity only. The charging part of the indictment must be alone considered in determining whether the indictment charges a public offense. If it states facts showing the commission of a crime by the defendant, the law determines its name and nature, and neither a misnomer of the crime nor the omission to give it a name affects the validity of the indictment. State v. Hinckley, 4 Minn. 261 (345); State v. Garvey, 11 Minn. 95 (154); State v. Coon, 18 Minn. 464 (518); State v. Munch, 22 Minn. 67.

It is further urged that the indictment is insufficient because it does not charge that the person to whom the bribe was offered was a juror. The allegations of the indictment in this respect are sufficient.

2. Two other objections to the indictment are assigned in support of the demurrer meriting more serious consideration. They are: (a) that the indictment does not contain any direct and certain allegation of fact as to the amount, kind, or value of the thing offered as a bribe; (b) that it is not alleged that the defendant knew that the person to whom the offer was made was then a juror.

It is claimed by the state that the indictment substantially follows the statute in alleging what was offered to the juror, and that it is sufficient in all other respects, when tested by the requirements of the statute, which, so far as here material, are: the indictment shall be direct and certain as regards the offense charged, and the particular circumstances thereof, when they are necessary to constitute a complete offense. The indictment is sufficient if it can be understood therefrom that the act charged as the offense is clearly set forth in ordinary and concise language, and that the act constituting the offense is stated with such a degree of certainty as to enable the court to pronounce judgment upon a conviction according to the right of the case. No indictment is insufficient by reason of a defect or imperfection in matter of form which does not tend to the prejudice of the substantial rights of the defendant upon the merits. G. S. 1894, §§ 7241, 7247, 7248.

These are wholesome and sensible provisions, which should be liberally construed, and indictments sustained where the objection is as to matters of form, and not of substance. But they were not intended to encourage laxity in criminal pleading in matters of substance, but simply to cure "a disease of the law" resulting from the overnicety of courts and their lack of practical sense in giving effect to formal defects in indictments. The statute dispenses with mere formality and technicality, but the requirement that the indictment must be direct and certain as regards the offense, and the particular circumstances thereof, is imperative. State v. Brown, 12 Minn. 393 (490); State v. McIntyre, 19 Minn. 65 (93). The rule that the charge must be laid positively, and not inferentially by way of recital merely, is not abrogated by the statute.

It is true, as claimed by the state, that an indictment may charge the commission of a statutory offense in the language of the statute without greater...