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27 Mo. App. 389

State v. Gowing

Missouri Court of Appeals

Decided October 24, 1887

Missouri Court of Appeals · decided 1887-10-24

E. C. Devore, Special Judge. Statement of case by the court. This was a prosecution instituted before a justice of the peace by information, charging the defendant with a misdemeanor. The defendant was convicted in the justice’s court, and he appealed to the circuit court.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed and remanded · Decided 1887-10-24

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently March 1965

4 state decisions

20188718901900191019201930194019501960decided

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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Hall, J.

¶1The action of the circuit court was on the theory that the justice’s judgment was void, by reason of the failure to arraign defendant; that there was nothing to appeal from to the circuit court, and that, therefore, the appeal was improperly taken.

¶2By section 2058, Revised Statutes, it is provided that any person, convicted before a justice of the peace for any misdemeanor, may appeal to the circuit or other court having jurisdiction in criminal' cases, by complying with the provisions of said section. By section 2063, Revised Statutes, a trial de novo in the circuit court of all cases properly appealed is provided.

¶3The right of appeal does not depend upon the validity of the justice’s judgment. The defendant may appeal from a void judgment against him, if he sees fit to do so, in which case the cause should be tried on its merits in the circuit court. In this case the defendant should have been arraigned in the circuit court, and the cause should then have been tried on its merits.

¶4Judgment reversed and cause remanded, to be proceeded with in conformity with this opinion.

All concur.
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