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4 Blackf. 355

State v. Offutt

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided November 29, 1837

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1837-11-29

<p>Perjury may be committed in giving evidence before a grand jury.</p> <p>An indictment for perjury must state a day certain on which the offence was committed..</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1837-11-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently January 1880

4 state decisions

10183718401850186018701880decided

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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» Dewey, J.

¶1This was an indictment for perjury, charged to have been committed in giving evidence before a grand jury, legally impanelled in the Rush Circuit Court. The prisoner move'd the Court to quash the indictment; the motion w;as sustained, and the prisoner discharged. The reason assigned in support of the motion, and alleged - by the Court as the ground of quashing the indictment, was, that the “law does not warrant an indictment for perjury founded on a swearing before a grand jury.”

¶2There is not the slightest foundation for this proposition. By our statute, every person, who, having taken a lawful oath or affirmation in a judicial proceeding, or other matter in which the law requires an oath, shall swear or affirm falsely, wilfully, and corruptly touching any material matter,—or who shall thus swear or affirm before any officer authorised to administer an oath, to any certificate, or affidavit, or statement of any nature whatever, or for any purpose whatever,—shall be deemed guilty of perjury. That these provisions extend to false evidence before a grand jury, admits not of the least doubt.

¶3The Circuit Court, however, committed no error in quashing the indictment.- It is vicious for want of a day certain-being laid on which the committing of the perjury is charged. The charge is, that the offence was committed before the grand jury impanelled, &c., at a Circuit Court begun and held *356ortj &c. This is- not sufficient; a particular day should be named.

W. Quarles, for the state. G. B. Smith and C. H. Test, for the. defendant. Per Curiam.

¶4The judgment is affirmed. To be certified, &c.

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