Territory v. Shipley
| Decision Date | 02 February 1882 |
| Citation | 2 P. 313,4 Mont. 468 |
| Parties | TERRITORY v. SHIPLEY. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
Where the record does not disclose that the prisoner was arraigned and pleaded, the arraignment and plea will be presumed unless there be something which affirmatively shows their absence.
Where in an indictment the stolen property is described as "sundry bank bills, issued on the authority of the United States, usually known as 'greenbacks,' amounting in all to the sum of $589," such description is not sufficient to support the indictment, or enable the jury to determine that the stolen chattels are the same referred to in the indictment. The number, kind, and denomination of the bills ought to be given, or a good and sufficient excuse for not doing so set forth in the indictment.
From Third district, Lewis and Clarke county.
T. J Lowery, for respondent.
E. W. & J. K. Toole, for appellant.
The record in this case does not show that the defendant was arraigned and plead to the indictment. This is assigned as one of the reasons for the reversal of the judgment. No objection appears to have been made upon this ground in the court below, and the defendant was duly tried after demurrer. We cannot reverse the judgment, for the reason alone that the record does not show an arraignment and a plea by the defendant. Where the record does not, as in this case disclose such arraignment and plea, unless there is something to show affirmatively that the defendant was not arraigned and did not plead, such arraignment will be presumed. But the defendant demurred to the indictment, alleging, among other reasons therefor, the following, viz.: "That there is no sufficient description of the property alleged to be stolen to put the defendant on his defense." The description of the property alleged to have been stolen in the indictment was as follows: "Sundry bank bills, issued by authority of the United States of America, usually known as 'greenbacks,' amounting in all to the sum of one hundred and eighty dollars, of the value of one hundred and eighty dollars," "and sundry bank bills, issued by the authority of the United States of America, usually known as 'greenbacks,' amounting, in the aggregate, to five hundred and eighty-nine dollars, of the value of five hundred and eighty-nine dollars."
This description fails to give the number, kind, or denomination of the bank bills. It is this failure which it is claimed constitutes the insufficiency of the description of the property, and renders the indictment consequently bad. One of the principal objects to be accomplished by an accurate precise, and certain description of property alleged to be stolen, in an indictment for larceny, is that the jury may be able to decide whether the chattel proved to have been stolen is the very same as that described in the indictment. It should, therefore, be described with sufficient...
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