Bigham v. State

Decided April 15, 1882

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1882-04-15

Hon. J. W. C. Watson, Judge. At the trial of an indictment for carrying a concealed weapon, to wit, a pistol, on Nov. 4, 1880, the appellant, under his plea of prior conviction and punishment for this offence, offered the following record: — “ S. E. Bigham v. “Tiie State,— “ Carrying Concealed Pistol.” This day S. E. Bigham came before me, an acting justice of the peace for the county of Union, and acknowledged that he did on the 4th day of November, 1880, carry a pistol,…

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The proceedings in a trial by a justice of the peace of one charged with a misdemeanor are regulated by law. . . . It is true that persons may be arrested in certain cases without a warrant; but without a charge preferred as required by law, there is no case to be disposed of by the'justice of the peace, and nothing to sustain a conviction in such a case as this record presents.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Goetz

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1882-04-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently September 1974

11 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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Campbell, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The proceedings in a trial by a justice of the peace of one charged with a misdemeanor are regulated by law, in accordance with art. 1, § 31, of the Constitution. Code 1880, § 2217. It is true that persons may be arrested, in certain cases, without a warrant; but without a charge preferred, as required by law, there is no case to be disposed of by the justice of the peace, and nothing to sustain a conviction in such a case as this record presents.

¶3Judgment affirmed.