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49 La. Ann. 593

State v. Precovara

Supreme Court of Louisiana

Decided March 29, 1897

Supreme Court of Louisiana · decided 1897-03-29

<p>The offence was prescriptible.</p> <p>An indictment which has been declared a nullity does not interrupt prescription.</p> <p>A year had elapsed from the date of the alleged crime to the day the information was filed.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1897-03-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently November 1947

5 state decisions

50189719001910192019301940decided

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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¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

Breaux, J.

¶2An information for a prescriptible offence was filed.

¶3A plea of prescription was interposed as a bar to the prosecution.

¶4On the trial of this plea it was proved that an indictment had been found, which, upon a motion made by the defendant to quash, was-quashed by the court.

¶5Whereupon the District Attorney filed an information.

¶6The judgment of the District Court sustained the plea of prescription.

¶7From the judgment the District Attorney has taken this appeal.

¶8The defendant could not be legally convicted. The information did not negative prescription. The defendant had not failed to sus - tain his plea. The indictment was, upon this plea, decreed null.

¶9The indictment which had been declared null did not interrupt prescription. No appeal was taken from the court’s order annulling it; it was as if it had not been found against the defendant.

¶10This court has decided in a number of cases that a prior prosecution upon a fatally defective iudictment does not interrupt prescription, State vs. Morrison, 31 An. 211; State vs. Baker, 30 An. 1134: State vs. Curtis, 30 An. 1166.

¶11The year having elapsed from the date, it was alleged in the information that the crime had been committed, to the date the information was filed, our only alternative is to affirm the judgment of the District Court.

¶12It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed that the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.

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