133 Ind. 577
Decided February 16, 1893
Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1893-02-16
<p>Cbiminai, Law. — Manslaughter.—Murder in the Second Degree. — Indictment. ■ — Sufficiency of. — Statute Construed — Section 1746, R. S. 1881, when construed in connection with section 1731, requiring the facts constituting the offense to he alleged, only dispenses with the statement of the “manner in, and means by, which the death was caused ” in case of an indictment for murder in the second degree or for manslaughter.</p> <p>Same. — Indictment.—Dubious Meaning. — Construction.—Doubt Given Accused. —An indictment which is dubious or capable of more than one construction is to be construed most strongly against the State, and all reasonable doubts arising on the indictment are to be given to the accused.</p> <p>Same. — Indictment.—Sufficiency.—Degree of Certainty. — Necessa/ry Facts.— Where an indictment, when construed most favorably to the State, fails to state with any degree of certainty that the death of the deceased was caused either directly or remotely by the acts charged against the accused, it is insufficient.</p> <p>Same. — Indictment.—Surplusage in. — Garbling Indictment. — The principle of law which permits unnecessary and harmless allegations in an indictment to be disregarded as surplusage, does not authorize the court to garble the indictment, regardless of its general tenor and scope, so as to entirely change its meaning.</p> <p>Same. — Instructions to Jury. — Oral.— When Erroneous. — Statute Construed.— Section 1823, Subd. 5, JR. S. 1881. — When the court during the trial of a cause, and before argument, orally instructed the jury for what purpose certain evidence was introduced, and, before argument, counsel for defendant requested all instructions he in writing, such instruction was not erroneous, as the statute, section 1823, subd. 5, R. S. 1881, only has reference to instructions to be given to the jury after the argument; but where, under the above conditions, but after the argument, the court orally instructed the jury as to the penalty they were authorized to inflict, in case of a conviction, the giving of the instruction, without reducing it to writing, amounted to reversible error.</p>
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1893-02-16
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently October 1954 · most notably Short v. State (1954), State v. Rini (1922)
28 state decisions
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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¶1Concurring Opinion.
¶2I concur in the result to which the court has arrived in this case. Tet, while I admit that the indictment is an awkward and bungling piece of composition, and that it should have been quashed in the court below, still, I think that it contains enough} and that it is sufficiently clear, to a common intent, to charge the crime' intended by the pleader, and, consequently, that, after verdict it should be held good.