State v. Rateiff

• Decision Date: 17 November 1915
• Docket Number: (No. 396.)
• Citation: 170 N.C. 707,86 S.E. 997
• Parties: STATE . v. RATEIFF.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

86 S.E. 997

170 N.C. 707

STATE .

v.RATEIFF.

(No. 396.)

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Nov. 17, 1915.

Appeal from Superior Court, Anson County; Lane, Judge.

J. Ben Ratliff was convicted of seduction under promise of marriage. From an order refusing to arrest the judgment, he appeals. Affirmed.

Robinson, Caudle & Pruette, and John W. Gulledge, all of Wadesboro, for appellant.

The Attorney General and T. H. Calvert, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

CLARK, C. J. The defendant was convicted of seduction under promise of marriage. He moved in arrest of judgment upon the ground that the indictment, otherwise following in every respect the wording of this offense as defined in Rev. 3354, omitted the word "and" by charging the prosecutrix as "being an innocent virtuous woman, " instead of "an innocent and virtuous woman" in the exact words of the statute.

Rev. 3254, prescribes:

"Every criminal proceeding by warrant, indictment, information, or impeachment, shall be sufficient in form for all intents and purposes, if it express the charge against the defendant in a plain, intelligible, and explicit manner; and the same shall not be quashed, nor the judgment thereon stayed, by reason of any informality or refinement, if in the bill or proceeding, sufficient matter appears to enable the court to proceed to judgment."

Rev. 3255 provides that no judgment upon any indictment for felony or misdemeanor, whether after verdict or by confession or otherwise, shall be stayed or reversed for the want of the averment of any unnecessary matter.

At the time when in the English courts 204 offenses were punished capitally, the judges were moved by considerations of humanity to be astute in finding defects in indictments, or in process, in cases when defendants might be punished beyond their deserts. The reason has long since ceased, and our statutes have forbidden the courts to quash or to arrest judgment, where the defect alleged is not prejudicial.

Chief Justice Ruffin, in State v. Moses, 13 N. C. 464, referring to these curative statutes, above cited, says:

"Many * * * sages of the law had before called nice objections of this sort a disease of the law, and a reproach to the bench, and lamented that they were bound down to strict and precise precedents. * * * We think the Legislature meant to disallow the whole of them."

This case has been cited with approval in many cases, among them in State v. Smith, 63 N. C. 234, in which the court said that:

These statutes have "received a very liberal construction, and its efficacy has reached and healed numerous defects in the substance, as well as in the form of indictment. * * * It is evident that the courts have looked with no favor upon technical objections, and the Legislature has been moving in the same direction. The current is all one way, sweeping off, by degrees, informalities and refinements, until, indeed, a plain, intelligible, and explicit charge * * * is all that is now required."

The subject is fully discussed with citation of many cases in State v. Barnes, 122 N. C., 1031, 29 S. E. 3S1, and in subsequent cases in the citations thereto in Anno. Ed.

A motion in arrest of judgment after conviction, on the ground that the bill of indictment is defective, will not be granted unless it appears that the bill is so defective that judgment cannot be pronounced upon it. State v. Francis, 157 N. C. 612, 72 S. E. 1041.

"The omission of a word which is not descriptive of the offense, and which does not affect the plain meaning of the indictment, is not fatal." 22 Cyc. 292; Bishop, New Cr. Proc. (2d Ed.) § 354; 10 Encyclopedia Pl. & Pr. 478.

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