State v. Munsey
Decision Date | 04 February 1916 |
Citation | 96 A. 729,114 Me. 408 |
Parties | STATE v. MUNSEY. |
Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Exceptions from Supreme Judicial Court, Lincoln County, at Law.
Complaint was filed against Warren M. Munsey. To the overruling of his demurrer thereto, he excepts. Exceptions overruled, and judgment for the State.
Argued before SAVAGE, C. J., and CORNISH, KING, HANSON, and PHILBROOK, JJ.
James B. Perkins, Co. Atty., of Boothbay Harbor, for the State. W. M. Hilton, of Damariscotta, for respondent.
This case arises from an alleged violation of one of the provisions of R. S. c. 41, § 23, relating to carving or branding the owner's name upon cars in which lobsters are kept and buoys attached to traps used for catching lobsters. That part of the section alleged to be violated reads thus:
"All traps, nets or other devices for the catching of lobsters, shall have, while in the water, the owner's name carved or branded in like manner [i. e., in letters no less than three-fourths of an inch in length where it might be plainly seen] on all the buoys attached to said traps or other devices, under a penalty of * * * five dollars for each trap or device not so marked."
The complaint, omitting formal parts, charges that:
"Warren M. Munsey, of Bristol, in the county of Lincoln, at Bristol, in said county of Lincoln, on the 22d day of August, in the year one thousand nine hundred fifteen, was the owner of thirteen traps used for the catching of lobsters, which said traps while in the water did not then and there have his, the said Munsey's, name carved or branded on all the buoys attached to said traps, where it could be plainly seen, in letters no less than three-fourths of an inch in length."
The respondent filed a general demurrer, which was overruled, and the case is before us upon exceptions to that ruling.
The charge against the respondent is of conduct not criminal at common law, but made so by statute. It is an elementary rule of criminal pleading that every fact or circumstance which is a necessary ingredient in a prima facie case of guilt must be set out in the complaint or indictment. It has been also frequently declared that in complaints or indictments charging violation of a statutory offense it is sufficient to charge the offense in the language of the statute without further description, providing the language of the statute fully sets out the facts which constitute the offense. Again, it has been held that the complaint or indictment is sufficient if it should state all the elements necessary to constitute the offense either in the words of the statute or in language which is its substantial equivalent. It has also been held that the indictment or complaint is sufficient if it...
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...of course, follow the statute * * *.' Section 21, Directions and Forms for Criminal Procedure, Whitehouse and Hill; State v. Munsey, 114 Me. 408, 410, 96 A. 729 (1916); Smith, Petitioner v. State of Maine, 145 Me. 313, 318, 75 A.2d 538 Careful criminal pleading would result in the use of a ......
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