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10 Ind. 453

Lawrence v. State

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided June 19, 1858

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1858-06-19

<p>Section 105, 2 It. S. p. 375, providing that where two or more defendants are indicted jointly, any defendant requiring it must he tried separately, does not extend to prosecutions by information.</p>

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Decided 1858-06-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently February 1924

4 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Perkins, J.

¶1Information against Lawrence and two others, for creating and continuing a nuisance, by placing and leaving “ the carcass of a dead mare near a certain public highway, where all citizens were wont to pass, &c., which carcass decayed and became offensive,” &c.

¶2The defendants appeared and severally demanded a separate trial. The Court refused the demand; the defendants were tried jointly; two were acquitted, and one convicted and fined.

¶3It is assigned for error that the Court erred in refusing separate trials. The record shows nothing touching the point except the facts we have recited.

¶4At common law, separate trials in such cases were in the discretion of the Court; and that discretion was presumed, the contrary not appearing, by the superior Court, to have been rightly exercised. But our statute (2 R. S. p. 375, § 105) enacts that where “ two or more defendants *454are indicted jointly, any defendant requiring it, must be tried separately.”

W. Herod and S. Stansifer, for the appellant.

¶5The question is, were the defendants in this case indicted? They were prosecuted in the Common Pleas by information, for a misdemeanor. Prosecutions in the Common Pleas are not by indictment. It is only felonies that are thus prosecuted, in the Circuit Court, upon bills found by a grand jury.

¶6We think the statute quoted should not, by construction, be extended to prosecutions by information.

¶7Per Curiam. — The judgment is affirmed with costs.

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