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143 Minn. 488

State v. Wellman

Supreme Court of Minnesota

Decided July 18, 1919

Supreme Court of Minnesota · decided 1919-07-18

Harvey IVellman was indicted by the grand jury of Hennepin county. The proceedings in the district court for that county at the trial before Fish, J., .are stated id the opinion. The court certified the question to the supreme court.

Relies on State v. Byrud · State v. Smith · State v. Billings

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Dismissed and remanded · Decided 1919-07-18

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently November 1974

4 state decisions

201919192019301940195019601970decided

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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Per Curiam.

¶1On the trial of this cause and immediately after a jury had been impaneled to try the issues presented by the indictment and defendant’s plea of *489not guilty, and, after the county attorney had made his opening statement to the jury, counsel fo,r defendant interposed a motion to quash the indictment and for the discharge of defendant, on the ground that on the facts stated by the county attorney there could be no conviction, for such facts if established would not constitute a violation of the statute on which the indictment is founded. Thereupon the court discharged the jury and certified the cause to this court for the determination of -the question thus raised.

¶2The certification of the cause to this court must be dismissed. The facts do not bring it within the statute providing for such review. G. Si. 1913, § 9251. The question certified does not arise upon a demurrer or special plea to the indictment, nor has there been a conviction thereunder. State v. Toole, 124 Minn, 532, 144 N. W. 474; State v. Billings, 96 Minn. 533, 104 N. W. 1150. Neither has the trial court decided the question presented by defendant’s motion; an essential prerequisite. State v. Byrud, 23 Minn. 29; State v. Smith, 116 Minn. 228, 133 N. W. 614. A question arising at the trial by a motion challenging the sufficiency of the indictment o.r the sufficiency of the evidence to justify a verdict of guilty, can be certified to this court only after the defendant has been convicted. And a question which the trial court has not decided cannot be certified up in any case.

¶3The proceedings in this court are therefore dismissed and the cause remanded for further proceedings.

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