State v. Sherman

Decided May 2, 1903

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1903-05-02

Hance N. Hutton, Judge. STATEMENT BY THE COURT. At the September term, 1901, of the St. Francis circuit court, the grand jury returned against appellee an indictment in the following terms (omitting caption): “The grand jury of St. Francis county, in the name and by the authority of the state of Arkansas, accuse Tweed Sherman of the crime of grand larceny, committed as follows, to-wit: The said Tweed Sherman on the 1st day of June, 1901, in the county of St. Francis…

Cited by 2 later decisions — most recently March 1953

2 state decisions

Relies on People v. Smith · Boarman v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Eeversed · Decided 1903-05-02

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Wood, J.,

¶1(after stating the facts). The motion to instruct the jury to find the defendant not guilty, before the introduction of any evidence whatever, was, in effect, a demurrer to the indictment, and we shall so treat it.

¶2Our attention has been called to no defect in the indictment. If there was one, we fail to detect it, unless the allegation that the steer stolen was the “property of the E. S. Hudspath estate,” was demurrable. But in Boarman v. State, 66 Ark. 65, this court upheld an indictment charging defendant with entering “upon lands belonging to the J. J. Hemphill estate,” and approved the ruling in thé ease of People v. Smith, 112 Cal. 333.

¶3The indictment sufficiently identified the illegal act, and the motion to instruct the jury to acquit the defendant should have been overruled, and defendant placed on trial. Treating the motion as a demurrer, defendant was never in jeopardy.

¶4Eeversed and remanded for a new trial.