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44 Wis. 595

Sullivan v. State

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided August 15, 1878

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1878-08-15

SulUvan sued out a writ of error from this court to review a judgment against him in a criminal prosecution commenced by information. The judgment provided for his confinement in the' state prison for a term of one year. The offense with which he was charged, and the errors alleged, will sufficiently appear from the opinion.

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Decided 1878-08-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently December 1926

4 state decisions

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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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ObtoN, J.

¶1The information charges that the defendant, with force and arms, being armed with a dangerous weapon, made an assault upon the body of one Adolph Klofonda, with *596intent, feloniously, willfully and unlawfully, and of bis malice aforethought, him, the said Adolph Klofonda, to kill and murder.

¶2The court charged the jury: “If you find, in the first place, that it was not an offense as charged in the information, that of an assault with intent to commit the crime of murder, then, if you find that it was an offense which comes under the statute just read, that is, an assault with intent to do great bodily harm to the prosecuting'witness, you will say that you find the defendant guilty of an assault with intent to do great bodily harm, but not guilty of an assault with intent to commit murder,” etc.

¶3The verdict of the jury was: “We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of an assault with intent to do great bodily harm, but not guilty of an assault with intent to commit the crime of murder.”

¶4This verdict is precisely in the form directed by the court in the above instruction, and leaves out an essential element of the crime as defined in ch. 78, Laws of 1877, viz., “ being a/rmed with a dangerous weapon,” and does not warrant the judgment and sentence of imprisonment in the state prison. The verdict may be sustained by treating it as one for an assault merely, rejecting the words “ with intent to do great bodily harm” as surplusage; and so it should have been received, and the judgment and sentence should have been rendered under sec. 10, ch. 179, R. S. 1858, for an assault. Carpenter v. The People, 4 Scam., 198; People v. Vanard, 6 Cal., 562; Ex parte Max, 44 id., 586; People v. Murat, 45 id., 281; Ex parte Ah Cha, 40 id., 426; People v. Davis, 4 Parker, 61; Wilson v. The People, 24 Mich., 410; ch. 364, Laws of 1860; Benedict v. The State, 12 Wis., 314. It fol-Tows that the judgment must beset aside as erroneous, and the defendant should be sentenced under sec. 10, ch. 179, R. S. 1858, as for an assault.

¶5By the Court. — The judgment of the circuit court is re*597versed, and the prisoner remanded to the custody of the sheriff of Eacine county, to be sentenced according to law.

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