State v. MacDonald

• Decision Date: 31 July 1908
• Citation: 117 N.W. 482,105 Minn. 251
• Parties: STATE v. MacDONALD.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

105 Minn. 251

117 N.W. 482

STATE

v.MacDONALD.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 31, 1908.

Case Certified from District Court, Scott County; P. W. Morrison, Judge.

Thomas W. MacDonald was indicted for criminal carelessness. Questions certified, and indictment held insufficient.

Syllabus by the Court

An indictment must set out with directness and certainty the particular facts necessary to constitute the complete criminal offense charged.

An indictment for criminal carelessness in the operation of a railway engine and train by its engineer, whereby a collision occurred and named persons were killed, is held to have been insufficient. E. T. Young and F. J. Leonard, for the State.

Albert E. Clarke, for defendant.

JAGGARD, J.

Defendant demurred to an indictment. The trial court, being satisfied that the questions thus raised were so important and doubtful as to require the decision of the Supreme Court as to the sufficiency of the indictment, certified the following questions: ‘(1) Does the indictment substantially conform to the requirements of sections 5297, 5298, 5299, and 5300, of the Revised Laws of 1905, as qualified by section 5305 of such Laws? (2) Do the facts stated in said indictment constitute a public offense? (3) Does the indictment contain a statement of the acts constituting the offense in ordinary and concise language? (4) Is not the indictment direct and certain, in this: that it states the particular circumstances of the offense charged, and states facts sufficient to constitute a public offense?’

It is elementary that an indictment must set out the particular facts necessary to constitute the complete criminal offense charged. Every essential element of the offense charged must be alleged directly and certainly. An indictment is not good if it omit an allegation without which a criminal offense would not be described. State v. McIntyre, 19 Minn. 93 (Gil. 65); State v. Howard, 66 Minn. 309, 68 N. W. 1096,34 L. R. A. 178, 61 Am. St. Rep. 403;State v. Clements, 82 Minn. 448, 85 N. W. 234. In the case at bar the indictment alleges that the defendant, an engineer of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Company, which operated on its line of road, ‘among other trains, a certain freight train known as and called ‘Freight Train No. 94,’ and a certain passenger train known as and called ‘Passenger Train No. 2,’ consisting of a locomotive engine, a baggage car, an express car, a mail car, passenger cars, and a dining car, and which said Thomas W. MacDonald was then and there managing and in charge of, as an engineer of said railroad company, that certain property of said railroad company, to wit, said freight train No. 94, composed of, among other things, a locomotive engine and box cars.' Defendant argues that this allegation is not...