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84 Ala. 432

Pfister v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided December 15, 1887

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1887-12-15

Tried before Hon. S. E. Gbeene. Appellant was indicted, tried and convicted of grand larceny in stealing a watcb and chain alleged to be gold. The defendant objected to be put to a trial for tbe above offense , on the 22nd day of February, tbe day tbe case was called for trial, on tbe ground that such day was a legal holiday— dies non júridicus. 'The objection was overruled.

Relies on Washington v. State · Reid v. State · Belmont Coal & Railroad v. Smith

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1887-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently February 1957

6 state decisions

1018871890190019101920193019401950decided

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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STONE, C. J.

¶1There is nothing in the objection that the defendant was tried on the 22nd February, a legal holiday. Holidays with us are not, on that account, non-judicial days. Belmont Coal & R. R. Co. v. Smith, 74 Ala. 206 ; State v. Ricketts, 74 N. C. 187; Reid v. State, 53 Ala. 402.

¶2The defendant was indicted for the larceny of a gold watch and watch chain. The proof was that the case of the watch was composed of a metal ten carats of - gold and fourteen of alloy, and that such watch was not considered a gold watch among jewellers, but that the people generally called such case a gold case.

¶3“The indictment must state the facts constituting the offense in ordinary and concise language, without prolixity or repetition’, in such a manner as to enable a person of common understanding to know what is intended,” &c. — Code of 1886, § 4368; Chisolm v. State, 45 Ala. 66 ; Washington v. State, 58 Ala. 355; Lavender v. State, 60 Ala. 60.

¶4We can not affirm, as matter of law, that the description, “one gold watch,” would not enable’ a person of common understanding to know that the watch described by the witnesses, was the watch intended to be described in the indictment. It was such watch as is'generally called a gold watch by the public. The criminal court did not err in refusing to give the charge first asked by defendant. In the other rulings, the trial court fairly submitted the questions of inquiry to the jury, and there is no error in the record.

¶5Affirmed.

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