State v. Hume
| Decision Date | 05 January 1950 |
| Citation | 145 Me. 5,70 A.2d 543 |
| Parties | STATE v. HUME. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
James L. Reid, County Attorney for Kennebec County, Augusta, for plaintiff.
William H. Niehoff, Waterville, for defendant.
Before MURCHIE, C. J., and THAXTER, FELLOWS, MERRILL, NULTY and WILLIAMSON, JJ.
A jury found this respondent guilty of breaking and entering and larceny, under an indictment alleging his entry into: 'the office of the Maine Central Railroad Station, * * * of one Maine Central Railroad Company,' and the stealing, therefrom, of certain metallic and paper currency: 'The property of said Maine Central Railroad Company'. There was no allegation that the owner of the premises and property named was a corporation, or was incorporated. After verdict, and before judgment, the respondent filed a motion in arrest, alleging the indictment defective, or insufficient in law, because of that omission, and on an additional ground waived when the case was argued. The motion was denied.
Respondent's exceptions allege error in rulings on the motion and on the admission, over objection, of two items of evidence. Exceptions were reserved, and perfected, on each ruling. We consider the motion first, not merely because it appears first in the Bill of Exceptions, but because there would be no point in considering the others unless the indictment is sufficient to support a conviction on a retrial of the case. The County Attorney argues that the defect in the indictment, if any, which he denies, is one of form only, and that the motion was not open to the respondent after verdict. There is no merit in this assertion. Even if the motion had not beem filed it would be the duty of this Court to arrest the judgment if the verdict did not find the respondent guilty of an offense in law. State v. McAloon, 40 Me. 133.
Copies of the indictment and the motion, and a transcript of the evidence of the witnesses whose testimony is in question, and nothing more, are incorporated in the Bill of Exceptions. These are sufficient to permit the Court to pass upon the issues raised, so far as they are essential to a disposition of the case. Nothing more is required. Merrill v. Merrill, 67 Me. 70. See also Jones v. Jones et al., 101 Me. 447, 64 A. 815, 115 Am.St.Rep. 328, and cases cited therein.
In considering the indictment and its alleged defect, we note at the outset that there is 'much contrariety' in reported decisions on the question whether the owner of property mentioned in an indictment must be alleged to be a corporation, if it is. Such is the statement of People v. Mead, 200 N.Y. 15, 92 N.E. 1051, 140 Am.St.Rep. 616, and 17 R.C.L. 62, Sec. 67. In both, as in 32 Am.Jur. 1028, Sec. 114, it is said that the rule which prevailed long ago in England, and required 'great particularity in the description of persons', had been followed in some jurisdictions in this country, and relaxed in others. This Court has never been called upon to take a position on it. There is adequate authority either way. An annotation, and a note, following the reports, in A.L.R., of People v. Cohen, 352 Ill. 380, 185 N.E. 608, 88 A.L.R. 481, and in Ann.Cas., of State v. Clark, 223 Mo. 48, 122 S.W. 665, 18 Ann.Cas. 1120, group many jurisdictions according to their conflicting positions. The note in Ann.Cas. states the reasons underlying the requirement of an allegation of incorporation, where it is held requisite, as does Fisher v. State, 40 N.J.L. 169, 11 Vroom 169, where they are said to be: 'in fairness, to inform the defendant of the precise offense with which he is charged, and also to secure him against another prosecution for the same offense.'
The Indiana Court, in Norton v. State, 74 Ind. 337, declared the view that it was fairly deducible from the authorities that when a name was used in an indictment which was apparently a corporate one, a corporate existence might be implied without being averred. We are in accord with that view, as with the further statement of that Court, in that case, that no innocent person could be imperiled by the absence of an allegation of incorporation under such circumstances, although many guilty ones might escape merited punishment if its omission was held to render an indictment defective. It is interesting to note, in considering the old rule, which the cases and notes seem to indicate has been relaxed to some extent in England, that Virginia dispensed with it as far back as 1822. Lithgow v. Commonwealth, 2 Va.Cas. 297.
The tendency of this Court to avoid adherence to refinements in criminal pleading was asserted in State v. Littlefield, 122 Me. 162, 163, 119 A. 113, in language...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- State v. Hume
-
State v. Desjardins
...thereon might not foreclose our consideration of the point on its merits. See State v. Boutot, Me., 325 A.2d 34 (1974); State v. Hume, 145 Me. 5, 70 A.2d 543 (1950). The record does fully disclose the circumstances surrounding the electronic interception of the Leighton Desjardins conversat......
-
State v. Brann
...to quash. 10 State v. Beaudette, 122 Me. 44, 118 A. 719 (1922); State v. Shannon, 136 Me. 127, 3 A.2d 899 (1939); and State v. Hume, 145 Me. 5, 70 A.2d 543 (1950). This remedial restriction remained even though the Court in Couture, had extended itself to reach the issue of the abrogation o......
-
People v. Whittaker
...was to adequately inform the defendant of the charges against him and to protect him from possible double jeopardy. (See State v. Hume, 145 Me. 5, 70 A.2d 543, State v. Clark, 223 Mo. 48, 122 S.W. 665, 18 Ann.Cas. 1120.) Defendants admit that the form of the indictment was sufficient to inf......