United States v. Doe

• Decision Date: 10 February 1904
• Docket Number: 4,158.
• Citation: 127 F. 982
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. DOE.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

127 F. 982

UNITED STATES v. DOE.

No. 4,158.

United States District Court, N.D. California.

February 10, 1904

Marshall B. Woodworth, U.S. Atty.

T. C West, for defendant.

DE HAVEN, District Judge.

The indictment charges 'John Doe, a Chinese person, whose true name is to the grand jurors aforesaid unknown,' with the offense of having aided and abetted the illegal landing of one Lee Hun in the United States from a certain vessel arriving in San Francisco from the port of Hong Kong. A Chinese person has been arraigned upon this indictment, and has demurred thereto upon several grounds, one of which is 'that it is not alleged therein and cannot be ascertained therefrom who is charged with having committed the offense attempted to be charged therein. ' It is a fundamental rule of criminal pleading that a defendant must be so described in an indictment that he can be identified, and for this purpose the general rule is that he must be charged by his true name, or by the name by which he is generally known and, if neither his true name nor the name by which he is generally called is known, then he must be otherwise so described that it shall appear what particular person is charged with the commission of the offense named in the indictment. In section 678, vol. 1, Bishop on Criminal Procedure, it is said:

'The grand jury can, if they choose, charge him by a mere fictitious name, as though known to be his own. Then, if he elects not to be tried by it, he must plead the misnomer in abatement, and give his true name, which they can substitute for the old in a fresh indictment. Or by statute in some of our states the true name may, on tender of the plea, be substituted for the fictitious, as already explained.'

And in 1 Archbold's Criminal Practice and Pleading, p. 241, note (1), it is said:

'A name which the defendant has usually gone by and acknowledged is sufficient; and if there be a doubt which of two names is the real one, the second may be added after an alias dictus, thus: 'Richard Wilson, otherwise called Richard Sayer.' * * * If his name be unknown and he refuse to disclose it, he may be indicted as 'a person whose name is to the jurors unknown, but who was personally brought before them by the keeper of the prison.' * * * But an indictment against him as a person to the grand jurors unknown is insufficient, without something to ascertain whom the grand jury meant.' Anon., Russ. & R. 489.

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