State v. Hull
| Decision Date | 29 May 1891 |
| Citation | 48 N.W. 917,83 Iowa 112 |
| Parties | THE STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, v. FRED M. HULL, Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Lyon District Court.--HON. GEORGE W. WAKEFIELD, Judge.
THE defendant was tried, found "guilty as charged," and sentenced to be confined in the penitentiary for a term of three years, upon an indictment charging as follows "The said Fred M. Hull, on or about the twenty-seventh day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine, in the county and state aforesaid in a certain store building of I. R. Hull & Co., situate on the east twenty-two feet of the west forty-four feet of lots 1, 2 and 3, in block 15, in the town of Rock Rapids, Iowa did wilfully, maliciously and feloniously, in the night time cause to be set fire to, and burned, a large amount of excelsior, burlap and other combustible material to the grand jurors unknown, with the wilful, malicious and felonious intent then and there, in the manner and at the time and place aforesaid, to cause to be burned the said store building aforesaid of I. R. Hull & Co., and did then and there, as aforesaid, in the manner and at the time and place aforesaid, wilfully, maliciously and feloniously set fire to and cause to be burned in the night time, at the time and place aforesaid, the said aforesaid store building of I. R. Hull & Co., said store building being of the value of fifteen hundred dollars." The defendant appeals from this judgment, assigning and urging in argument as errors the several matters hereinafter considered.
Affirmed.
J. M. Parsons, for appellant.
John Y. Stone, Attorney General, and H. G. McMillen, for the State.
I. The county attorney filed an amended abstract on behalf of the appellee covering ninety-four pages, which he certifies, in connection with the appellant's abstract, fully presents the case. The appellant denies the correctness of the amended abstract, and moves to strike it from the files because useless, and not filed in time. We have, with considerable labor, compared the abstracts with each other, and with the transcript furnished by the appellant, and reach the conclusion that the appellant's abstract fully and fairly presents the case, and that the appellee's amendment was unnecessary. Another objection to the amended abstract, though not urged by the appellant, may be noticed by the court. It is that the so-called "amended abstract" is not in fact an abstract, but largely a transcript of the testimony by questions and answers at length. We recognize the necessity and advantage of, at times, setting out questions and answers as to some particular point that cannot be otherwise more concisely or plainly presented. While the county attorney claims that his abstract is within this necessity, we think he has gone beyond it, and necessitated the reading of many pages of questions and answers that could have been abstracted into a few pages with equal clearness. The appellant's motion to strike the amended abstract is sustained, but in view of the denials we have referred to the transcript in the consideration of the case.
II. Following the order pursued in the arguments, we first notice the appellant's contention that, although it was unnecessary to allege the location of the store building except that it was in the county, the state, having alleged its precise location as to lot and block, was bound to prove the location as alleged, and that no proof of such location was made. We think there is evidence from which the jury might find that the building was located as alleged, and do not, therefore, determine whether it was incumbent on the state to make such proofs.
III. One ground of the appellant's motion in arrest of judgment, and for a new trial, is that the indictment is bad for duplicity, in that it charges the crime of wilfully and maliciously burning a store, as defined in section 3884, and also the crime of setting fire to material with intent to cause the store to be burned, as defined in section 3885 of the Code. It is unquestioned that the indictment...
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