State v. State

• Decision Date: 20 March 1899
• Citation: 63 N.J.L. 526,42 A. 847
• Parties: STATE (APPLEBY, Prosecutor) v. STATE.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

42 A. 847

63 N.J.L. 526

STATE (APPLEBY, Prosecutor)

v. STATE.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

March 20, 1899.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Certiorari by the state, at the prosecution of J. Randolph Appleby, indicted for obtaining goods on false pretenses, against the state. Indictment quashed.

Argued February term, 1899, before LUDLOW and DIXON, JJ.

Frank P. McDermott, for prosecutor.

W. A. Heisley, Pros. of Pleas, for the State.

DIXON, J. The substantial question in this case is whether the indictment, which charges the defendant with obtaining, by false pretenses, "a large amount of dry and fancy goods, of the value of twenty-seven hundred dollars," describes the property obtained with sufficient certainty. In Hagerman v. State, 54 N. J. Law, 104, 23 Atl. 357, this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Reed, declared that, as a general rule, the same certainty of description is required in an indictment for obtaining goods by false pretenses as in an indictment for larceny. The leading objects of the description are in both classes of cases the same, viz. that the accused may be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, so as to be enabled to prepare his defense, and that the offense for which he is tried may be perceived to be that for which the grand jury indicted him. Both of these objects have the sanction of our constitution. The description adopted in the present case is very indefinite; it could hardly be more so. It embraces kinds of articles so numerous that they could not be called to mind by a person not expert in the business of dry and fancy goods. To such a person it would afford practically no aid in individualizing the transaction to which it relates. If a stock of dry and fancy goods contained in a certain store be intended, the description might be rendered reasonably certain by designating the store, but no such mark of distinction is set forth. In preparing for trial, the accused is left to surmise, as best he can, which of all the articles coming within the range of dry and fancy goods he is charged with obtaining, and on the trial both he and the court may be left in utter uncertainty whether the accusation before the petit jury is that on which the grand jury acted. On these grounds, an indictment for obtaining, by false pretenses, "a certain lot of dry goods," was held bad, in Redmond v. State, 35 Ohio St. 81.

The learned prosecutor urges that the other allegations of the indictment—the date, the place, the value of the...