State v. Watkins

• Decision Date: 19 December 1888
• Citation: 8 S.E. 346,101 N.C. 702
• Parties: STATE v. WATKINS.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

8 S.E. 346

101 N.C. 702

STATE v. WATKINS.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

December 19, 1888

Appeal from superior court, Watauga county; E. T. BOYKIN, Judge.

Where the indictment does not charge an offense, it is error to enter judgment on the verdict, though no motion in arrest is made.

The Attorney General, for the State.

MERRIMON J.

The defendant is indicted for an alleged violation of the statute, (Code, § 2482,) which provides as follows: "If any person shall willfully overdrive, overload, wound injure, torture, torment, deprive of necessary sustenance, or cruelly beat, or needlessly mutilate, or kill, or cause or procure to be overdriven, overloaded, wounded, injured tortured, tormented, or deprived of necessary sustenance, or to be cruelly beaten, needlessly mutilated, or killed, as aforesaid, any useful beast, fowl, or animal, every such offender shall, for every such offense, be guilty of a misdemeanor." This indictment charges that the defendant "did then and there knowingly and willfully and unlawfully torture, torment, and act in a cruel manner towards a certain animal, to-wit, a hog, the property of," etc. The defendant pleaded not guilty. Upon the trial there was a verdict of guilty, and judgment against the defendant, and he, having assigned error, appealed to this court. It seems that no motion in arrest of judgment was made in the court below; but that court should, in the absence of such motion, have refused to give judgment, upon the ground that the offense was not sufficiently charged in the indictment. The court cannot properly give judgment, unless it appears in the record that an offense is sufficiently charged. It is the duty of this court to look through and scrutinize the whole record, and, if it seems that the judgment should have been arrested, it will, ex mero motu direct it to be done. State v. Wilson, Phil. (N. C.) 237; State v. Wise, 67 N.C. 281; State v. Bobbitt 70 N.C. 81; Thornton v. Brady, 100 N.C. 38, 5 S.E Rep. 910; Morrison v. Watson, 95 N.C. 479. It is sufficient and proper, ordinarily, to charge statutory offenses in the words, or substantially in the words, of the statute creating them, and especially is this so when the statute defines the offense in words that have a technical or precise meaning, such as in themselves imply the offense, or the character and quality of the act or acts or things that constitute it, or an essential part or essential parts of it. This is so because the court can in such case see and determine that an offense is charged in the indictment, and the accused will have such information in respect to it as will enable him to understand it, and make preparation for his defense, and as will enable him to plead former acquittal or conviction in case of subsequent prosecution. Thus, in the statute recited above, the words "beat," "cruelly beat," "wound," and "kill," of themselves, respectively taken in the proper connection, imply sufficiently the act forbidden and the offense charged. It is otherwise, however, when the words of the statute are not precise, but are uncertain and indeterminate in their meaning, implying a multiplicity and variety of acts or things that may or may not constitute the offense in whole or in part. In such cases it is necessary to charge the facts that give special character and significance to the acts charged to have been done, and as designate with reasonable certainty in the statute cited the animal abused, in order that the court may see that the offense is charged, and the accused...