Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

172 Ala. 415

Henderson v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided June 15, 1911

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1911-06-15

Robbery. Appeal from Morgan Law and Equity Court. Heard before Hon. Thos. W. Wert. Rufus Henderson was convicted of robbery, and he appeals. An objection fatal on demurrer to an indictment will prevail on a motion in arrest of judgment. — Benjamin v. State, 121 Ala. 26; Francois v. State, 20 Ala. 83; Foster v. State, 39 Ala. 229; Brazier v. State, 44 Ala. 387.

Relies on Thomas v. State · Hill v. State · Brown v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed and remanded · Decided 1911-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently January 1984

12 state decisions

6019111920193019401950196019701980decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

MoCLELLAN, J.

¶1Conviction of robbery.

¶2This court, in Thomas’ Case, 91 Ala. 34, 36, 9 South. 81, said, in the exhaustive consideration of the elements and nature of this crime: “The offense is against both the person and against the property. The three essential elements of the offense are: (a) Felonious intent; (b) force, or putting in fear, as a means of effectuating the intent; (c) and, by that means, a tailing and carrying away of the property of another from his person or in his presence” (lettering supplied). Its doctrine has been since approved in these decisions: Morris’ Case, 97 Ala. 82, 12 South. 276; Higgs’ Case, 113 Ala. 36, 21 South. 353; Brown’s Case, 120 Ala. 342, 25 South. 182; Hill’s Case, 145 Ala. 58, 40 South. 654.

¶3The indictment here questioned (omitting formal parts) reads: “The grand jury of said county charges that before the finding of this indictment Rufus Henderson and Kirk McKinney feloniously took a lot of *417flour, garden seed, cheese, crackers, and a jar of blackberries, of the value of one dollar, the personal property of J. B. Teague, from his wagon and against his will, by violence to his person or by putting him in such fear as unwillingly to part with the same, against the peace and dignity of the state of Alabama.”

¶4The indictment is materially, in matter of substance, defective, in that it omits to aver, in any form or manner, that the taking — feloniously and under the influence of force or fear — of the property was from the person of Teague. The offense of robbery, in vital element, being against the person, as well as the property, it is imperative that the indictment either pursue the Code form wherein the term “person” is employed, or else that the averments particularly describe such a talcing as, in legal effect, amounts to a talcing from the person;, viz., in the presence of the party offended against, and who then had the property “under his direct-, physical, personal control” — a taking not necessarily from actual contact of the body, but from under his personal protection. — Thomas’ Case, supra; 2 Bish. Or. Law, §§ 1177, 1178.

¶5The averment is that the property was taken “from his wagon.” This allegation signifies the place from which the goods were taken, but does not, in any sense, refer the act to the person, as that is understood in legal parlance, when robbery is the crime intended to be charged.

¶6The indictment would not sustain a judgment of conviction of robbery. The motion in arrest was, hence, erroneously overruled.

¶7Beversed and remanded.

Simpson, Anderson, and Mayfield, jj., concur.
/172/ala/415 · .json · Public domain