Turner v. People

• Decision Date: 05 April 1876
• Citation: 33 Mich. 363
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Albert Turner v. The People

33 Mich. 363

Albert Turner v. The People

Supreme Court of Michigan

April 5, 1876

Heard January 14, 1876; January 18, 1876

Error to Huron Circuit.

Judgment affirmed.

R Winsor, C. H. Gallup and H. B. Carpenter, for plaintiff in error.

Andrew J. Smith, Attorney General, for the people.

OPINION

Graves, J.

Turner was convicted in June, 1875, in the circuit court for Huron county, upon a charge of rape on Emma Thompson in May, 1874, and is now undergoing sentence given on such conviction.

On arraignment in the circuit court, and before pleading, he moved to quash the information on the following grounds, in substance:

First, That he had never been examined on the specific charge set out, or had waived his right to be examined in regard thereto;

Second, That there had been no finding made by an examining officer that the offense described had been committed, nor any adjudication or finding by any such officer that he, Turner, was probably guilty of such offense, nor any determination requiring him to appear and answer to a charge therefor before the circuit court.

As matter of fact, he had been examined before a justice of the peace, under a complaint and warrant imputing to him a charge of rape upon Emma Thompson, named in the information, and these proceedings having been certified by the justice to the circuit court and there filed, the prosecuting attorney had based the information upon them. And on presenting the motion to quash, these proceedings were relied on by the plaintiff in error as evidence to support the motion, and his counsel read the complaint and warrant of arrest, the return made by the justice, and a portion of the examinations to establish the correctness of his position.

The court overruled the motion and required the plaintiff in error to plead, and he thereupon pleaded not guilty. On the coming in of the verdict, a motion in arrest of judgment was made, based upon the same ground as the motion to quash, and this the court likewise overruled. These, and other rulings, made in charging the jury, are now before us in a bill of exceptions brought up on writ of error. As the two motions raise the same questions, there is no need for separate consideration.

The grounds of the motions, in the forms in which they were stated, were deductions of the mover, and the true points contended for can hardly be apprehended without explanation; and this can only be obtained with fullness by recurring to the brief and arguments.

As already intimated, the plaintiff in error practically asserted that there had been a complaint, a warrant of arrest and an examination. The real claim was, that these proceedings were defective and were not competent to be a basis for an information charging an offense on May 5, 1874.

The substance of the argument may be indicated by three propositions:First, It was indispensably necessary that the complaint prior to the warrant should distinguish and charge the precise criminal act, to be followed up by a warrant and examination, and that the subsequent examination was required to be exclusively referred to such charge, and the respondent was not liable to be held, in consequence of the proceedings, for any other charge; that neither the complaint nor examination marked out a charge as one on which Turner was to be held for an act done on May 5, 1874;

Second, If the complaint was valid to support an examination for any specific criminal fact, it could be so deemed only by considering it as identifying and alleging an offense on the 4th of January, 1873, and the complaint being thus construed, the whole examination of Turner was required to be confined, and must be referred to the specific transaction so pointed out and it could not have been legally extended, and cannot be referred to a transaction of a later date by several months;

Third, It was indispensable for the legal completion and shaping of the proceedings to warrant an information, that the justice should have found that the specific offense alleged had been committed, and that there was probable cause to believe that Turner committed it. It was likewise necessary that such findings should be certified to the circuit court by the justice.

Assuming for the present that the proceedings before the justice were not impeachable for any thing suggested in the first and second propositions, but were a sufficient foundation for the information notwithstanding, it is then, we think, pretty clear that the objection implied by the last proposition was unwarranted.

The statute requires the justice, after "an examination of the whole matter," to come to an opinion as to whether or not an offense has been committed, and if of opinion that there has been, then as to whether there is probable cause to believe the accused guilty thereof, and thereupon to discharge or hold him to answer, according to the conclusion reached.--§§ 7859, 7860, C. L. But no record of a specific finding one way or the other is required to be kept or certified to the circuit court. If on "examination of the whole matter" it appears to the justice that an offense not cognizable by him has been committed, and that there is probable cause to believe the accused guilty, it is then the duty of the justice, if the case is bailable by him and sufficient bail is offered, to accept it and discharge the accused; and on the other hand, if the offense is not thus bailable, or being thus bailable if no sufficient bail is tendered, it is then the duty of the justice to commit the accused for trial.

In case the accused is held for trial the justice is required to "forthwith certify and return all examinations and recognizances" to the clerk of the court where the accused is bound to appear, and in case of failure the court is expressly authorized to compel return.--§ 7867, C. L. In case the justice commits for want of bail, he is commanded to certify on the mittimus the sum for which bail was required.--§ 7875, C. L.

This mittimus would naturally recite the conclusion reached on examination, but the mittimus is not an authority for filing an information. It is simply an authority to the sheriff and jailer to receive and hold the accused, and it is not to be filed in court or with the clerk. When the examinations and recognizances given by the accused and by witnesses are certified and returned, the statute is satisfied, and if bail is given, a return of the recognizance affords strong record evidence of the conclusion which the justice must have reached. The fact of taking bail imports the decision of the justice, and the fact of giving it imports a recognition of it by the accused. In the present case the plaintiff in error gave bail, and the justice certified the examinations.

The next point relates to the necessity of setting out in formal and distinct terms in the complaint the precise criminal act to be inquired into and prosecuted.

When, as in this instance, the complaint concerns an offense not triable by a justice, no such formality as the objection supposed is at all necessary. The statute does not intend it, and the nature of the proceeding makes against the propriety of exacting such formalities.

The fact itself of a complaint is needed to set the law in motion; but the statute does not prescribe any form in which the complaint must be made, and does not, in terms at least, even require that it shall be made in writing. Apart from some exceptional cases, as for adultery, it may proceed from any one, however illiterate or however unversed in the forms of procedure, who is able from acquaintance with facts to inform the magistrate that some particular crime a justice cannot try has been committed. Indeed, except in respect to special cases, as before mentioned, the law makes it the duty of every one, however unskilled in technical knowledge or uneducated, to inform against criminals, and failure to perform the duty cannot be answered by setting up inability to describe crime in the language of the law, or inability to read and write. Upon the fact of a complaint, the magistrate is moved to act. Then he must examine on oath the complainant and witnesses produced, to ascertain the truth, to develop particulars and find out whether there is proper cause, and if so, of what nature, for the issuance of a warrant. Whether there is ground for a warrant, and if so, for what, is not supposed to be necessarily made known by the complaint, and the law does not assume that the complaint must fix and control the after proceedings in regard to the title of the offense, or the date of it.--People v. Annis, 13 Mich. 511. The examination on oath, which immediately follows and is required as a consequence of the complaint, is the proceeding which the statute looks upon as the one to guide the magistrate in deciding whether a warrant ought to issue or not, and if so, for what.--People v. Lynch, 29 Mich. 274; Pardee v. Smith, 27 Mich. 33. The statute says expressly that "if it shall appear from such examination that any criminal offense not cognizable by a justice of the peace has been committed, the magistrate shall issue a warrant," etc., "reciting the substance of the accusation," etc.--§ 7845, C. L.

True, it may often happen that the complaint is at once reduced to writing, and that the examination preceding the warrant is combined, but the admissibility and reasonableness of such a course cannot add to or change the legal significance and requisites of a complaint.--§§ 7844, 7845, 7855, 7859, 7860, C. L.; and §§ 2, 3, 13, 20, 21, of Tit. 2, Pt. 4, cn. 2, N. Y. R. S. of 1830; Stewart v. Hawley, 21 Wend. 552; Payne v. Barnes, 5 Barb. 465; People v. Hicks, 15 Barb. 153.

Another circumstance tends to show the nature and office the legislature...