Harrington v. State

Decided June 23, 1880

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1880-06-23

The plaintiff in error was arrested and brought before a police justice by virtue of a warrant issued on a complaint charging him with a misdemeanor. He refused to plead, and the justice entered for him a plea of not guilty. The case was then adjourned to a future day, on motion of the district attorney. The justice failed to enter in his docket the place to which it was adjourned, and the record does not show that the adjournment was for cause.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1880-06-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently October 1950

3 state decisions

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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Lyon, J.

¶1Passing all other objections made to the validity of the judgment, there is one which is fatal. The trial was adjourned by the justice on motion of the district attorney, and the record of conviction does not show that such adjournment was for cause, much less the cause itself.- The case is, in principle, precisely like that of Hepler v. The State, 43 Wis., 479, and is ruled by it. The justice lost jurisdiction of the case by the irregular and unauthorized adjournment, and the appeal conferred no jurisdiction upon the circuit court to try and punish the accused.

¶2By the Court.— The judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the plaintiff in error discharged.