State v. Beard

Decided February 15, 1856

Supreme Court of New Jersey · decided 1856-02-15

<p>1. An indictment for perjury is fatally defective if it does not appear, either by direct averment, or by-necessary implication, upon the face of the indictment, that the.statement upon -which the perjury is assigned was material to the matter before the court.</p> <p>2. It is a- matter of discretion whether the court will quash an indictment; but where it is manifest that no judgment can be rendered upon the indictment, it will be quashed.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1856-02-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently March 1976

3 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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The Chief Justice

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The indictment is fatally defective, because it does not appear, either by direct averment or by anything stated in the indictment, that the statement upon which the perjury is assigned was material to the matter before the court. o

¶3For all that appears upon the face of the indictment, the statement alleged to have been false may have been totally immaterial to the matter in controversy. Arch. Cr. Pl. 429 ; 2 Russell on Cr. 639. Neither of the precedents referred to on the argument support this indictment.

¶4It is in all cases a matter of discretion whether the court will quash an indictment; but where it is manifest that no judgment can be rendered upon the indictment, the motion ' to quash will be allowed. State v. Dayton,. 3 Zab. 53.

¶5Let the indictment be quashed.