State v. Witherspoon

• Decision Date: 29 January 1906
• Citation: 90 S.W. 852,115 Tenn. 138
• Parties: STATE v. WITHERSPOON.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

90 S.W. 852

115 Tenn. 138

STATE v. WITHERSPOON.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

January 29, 1906

Appeal from Criminal Court, Madison County; Levi S. Woods, Judge.

Ross Witherspoon was indicted for violating the anti-trust act. From an order quashing the indictment, the state appeals. Affirmed.

Chas T. Cates, Jr., Atty. Gen., for the State.

Wm. H Biggs, for appellee.

SHIELDS J.

This case involves the sufficiency of an indictment against the defendant preferred under chapter 140, p. 268, of the Acts of 1903, commonly known as the "Anti-Trust Statute" of that year.

The indictment, other than the formal caption, is in these words:

"The grand jurors for the state upon their oath present that Ross Witherspoon heretofore, to wit, on the -- day of April, 1903, and at divers other times since said date, and before the finding of the indictment in this case, did in Madison county, Tennessee, unlawfully, knowingly, and feloniously as president, director and agent of the Southern Seating & Cabinet Company, a corporation chartered under the laws of the state of Tennessee, with its situs and principal place of business in Jackson, Tennessee, carry out the stipulations, purposes, prices, rates, and orders, made by the said Southern Seating & Cabinet Company with the American School Furniture Company, a foreign corporation, in furtherance of a conspiracy against trade, to wit, the said Southern Seating & Cabinet Company and the said American School Furniture Company having theretofore entered into, and being then and there parties to an arrangement, contract, agreement, trust, and combination with a view to lessen, and which tended to, and did lessen full and free competition in the importation and sale of articles imported into the state of Tennessee, and in the manufacture and sale of articles of domestic growth and of domestic raw material, and which tended to and did advance and control the price and cost of such product and article to the consumer and buyer thereof against the peace and dignity of the state."

It was quashed upon motion of the defendant, the grounds of the motion being:

(1) The said indictment does not charge or allege any crime or offense against the laws of Tennessee.

(2) It does not contain a sufficient statement of the facts constituting the offense or crime with the commission of which the defendant is charged.

(3) It does not state and describe any particular violation of the statute upon which it is predicated, but is general and indefinite in its terms. The state appeals, and assigns error.

The statute upon which this indictment is predicated (Acts 1903, p. 268, c. 140) has not been before this court for construction; but a similar statute, enacted in 1897 (Acts 1897, p. 241, c. 94), has been held constitutional and sustained. Bailey v. Master Plumbers, 103 Tenn. 99, 52 S.W. 853, 46 L. R. A. 561; State v. Schlitz Brewing Co., 104 Tenn. 715, 59 S.W. 1033.

This act--the one construed in the cases cited--contained a section exempting from its provisions contracts in relation to agricultural products and live stock while in the hands of the producer or raiser. A similar statute containing a like provision, enacted by the General Assembly of Illinois was held by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Company, 184 U.S. 554, 22 S.Ct. 431, 46 L.Ed. 679, to be for this reason a denial of the equal protection of the law, and repugnant to the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The present act does not contain this objectionable provision. It is the same in all particulars as the former act, with that exception, and both upon the authority of the cases of Bailey v. Master Plumbers' Association and State v. Schlitz Brewing Company, supra, and as a question of first impresion, we are of the opinion, and hold, that it is a valid and constitutional statute.

The only question, then, for consideration in this case is whether or not the indictment preferred against the defendant sufficiently charges a violation of the statute. The indictment follows, and is in the language of the act, and it is said, and generally it is true, that an indictment for a statutory offense which substantially follows the statute is sufficient. State v. Morgan, 109 Tenn. 157-166, 69 S.W. 970; Griffin v. State, 109 Tenn. 17-21, 70 S.W. 61;

1 Whart. Crim. Law, § 364.

It is also correctly said that in a prosecution for a conspiracy, which a violation of this statute is by it declared to be, the means by which the unlawful agreement and conspiracy was intended to be effectuated, or the evidence tending to prove the unlawful agreement, need not be set out, and that it is sufficient to charge in the indictment the existence and object of the conspiracy, without any statement of the means intended to be used in its accomplishment; the means being only matters of evidence to prove the fact of conspiracy. 3 Whart. Crim. Law, § 1345; 1 Eddy on Combinations, p. 226, § 350; Rex v. Eccles, 1 Leach, 274; Rex v. Gill & Henry, 2 B. & Ald. 204; People v. Richards, 1 Mich. 216, 51 Am. Dec. 75; State v. Crowley, 41 Wis. 271, 22 Am. Rep. 719.

But this does not meet the objection to this indictment. It is not that the indictment fails to set out the means by which the conspiracy charged was intended to be carried into effect, but that the conspiracy and the object to be effected are not sufficiently stated and charged so as to give the defendant notice of the particular crime and its nature with which he is charged, and to so describe and identify the offense that the judgment in this case could be relied upon in another for the same thing, as a former acquittal or conviction. All indictments must be sufficiently definite and direct in their averments to do these things. It is provided by our Constitution: "That no person shall be put to answer any criminal charge but by presentment, indictment or impeachment," and "that in all criminal prosecutions the accused hath the right to be heard by himself and his counsel and to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him and to have a copy thereof." Const. art. 1, §§ 9, 14.

This court said in the case of Pearce v. State, 1 Sneed, 67, 60 Am. Dec. 135, where the presentment was in the language of the statute, and charged the defendant with "unlawfully and knowingly voting in the county of Rhea not being a qualified voter of said county": "We think the presentment bad. The nature and cause of the accusation are not well...