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48 Mo. 70

State v. Cole

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided March 15, 1871

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1871-03-15

<p>1. Practice, criminal — Assault and battery — Prior conviction not a defense when fraudulently obtained. — A defendant, having committed an assault and battery, procured himself to be arrested and fined a small amount. Held, that such conviction and fine was not a defense to a subsequent prosecution instituted by the injured party for the same offense. Such action was a mere fraud upon the criminal justice of the State, and cannot be allowed to succeed.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1871-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently March 1975

8 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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Currier, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The defendant, having committed an assault and battery, as the case shoAvs, went before a justice and instituted proceedings against himself, and was fined three dollars and costs. Subsequently the present prosecution was instituted by the injured party for the same offense. The defendant pleads the former conviction in bar of the prosecution.

¶3It is apparent that.the first prosecution was a mere sham, gotten up by the defendant to shield him from the consequences *71of a real prosecution followed up by a real prosecutor. His action in that respect was a fraud upon tbe cnminal justice of the State, and cannot be allowed to succeed. The conviction, if such it might be called, is no bar to the present prosecution. It is a sufficient answer to the plea, that the alleged conviction was procured by the fraud and evil practice of the defendant himself. (8 Greenl. Ev., § 88, and authorities cited.)

¶4Let the judgment be affirmed.

The other judges concur.
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