Diehl v. State

62 N.E. 51, 157 Ind. 549, 1901 Ind. LEXIS 195
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 12, 1901
DocketNo. 19,658
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 62 N.E. 51 (Diehl v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Diehl v. State, 62 N.E. 51, 157 Ind. 549, 1901 Ind. LEXIS 195 (Ind. 1901).

Opinion

Jordan, C. J.

John H. Diehl, appellant in this appeal, together with Garrett D. Leach and Frank F. Diehl, was charged by affidavit and information with having committed on the person of Mary Farwig, at the county of Delaware and State of Indiana, the felonious crime of abortion. On November I, 1899, the State filed in the Delaware Circuit Court an affidavit and information each of which contained three separate counts or paragraphs. Subsequently the State filed what is denominated a supplemental affidavit and information each embracing four additional counts. On the motion of appellant he was granted a separate trial, and on [551]*551his application the cause was venued to the Henry Circuit Court. His motion to quash the affidavit and information and each count thereof was denied, to which he excepted, and thereupon entered his plea of not guilty. On the issues joined under this plea, the cause was submitted to a jury, who returned a verdict of guilty as charged, and that the age of appellant was thirty-six years. Over his motion for a new trial the court adjudged that he be imprisoned in the state prison for an indeterminate period of from three to fourteen years. Erom this judgment he appeals, and relies for a reversal thereof on the alleged errors of the trial court in denying his motion to quash the affidavit and information and each count thereof, and in overruling his motion for a new trial.

The prosecution is based on §1996 Burns 1901, §1923 Horner 1897, which reads as follows: “Whoever prescribes or administers to any pregnant woman, or to any woman whom he supposes to- be pregnant, any drug, medicine, or substance whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman; or, with like intent, uses any instrument or means whatever, unless such miscarriage is necessary to preserve her life, shall, if the woman miscarries or dies in consequence thereof, be fined not more than $500 nor less than $50, and imprisoned in the state prison not more than fourteen years nor less than three years.”

The affidavit and information, including that which is supplemental thereto-, each consists of seven separate counts. Appellant’s learned counsel contend that inasmuch as there is no express authority for an affidavit in a criminal cause to contain separate counts or paragraphs, such pleading, therefore, must be viewed and considered as a whole, and not in respect to its separate counts, and they assert that when the affidavit in question is so viewed and considered it becomes manifest that its several charges are so repugnant, self-contradictory, and antagonistic, that they destroy each other and thereby fail to show that appellant is guilty of any [552]*552public offense -whatever. All of. the counts in the affidavit are verified by the oath of one Samuel Cashmore. In some of-them it is charged that the miscarriage in controversy was produced by appellant and his codefendants by administering to one Mary Earwig a certain drug and medicine. In others it is charged that the abortion which resulted in the death of this woman was accomplished by means of and by the use of a certain instrument called a “catheter.” In others it is alleged that the instrument employed by appellant and his associates is unknown to affiant. While another count alleges that the miscarriage in question was procured by the administration and use of a certain instrument and substance unknown to the affiant. From an inspection of the affidavit and information it appears that the State was careful to charge therein by different counts the procurement of the miscarriage by the administration of different medicines or substances, and by the employment of different instruments, etc., in order to be prepared to meet any varying evidence in the case. Counsel assert that a grand jury may present by different counts in an indictment the various phases or means by which an offense is committed, but contend that this practice is not authorized or applicable when the prosecution is instituted through an affidavit and information. In other words, the insistence seems to be that the State in an affidavit cannot be permitted by using the conjunction “and” instead of “or,” as used in the statute, to charge the prohibited act in question to have been accomplished by the administration of some certain drug, medicine, or other substance, or by the use of differently named instruments. In the appeal of Rosenbarger v. State, 154 Ind. 425, we held that the State in a prosecution under the statute which makes it an offense to administer, or procure to be administered, any poison, etc., might, in a single counc of the indictment, by using the conjunction “and”, charge the accused with having offended against tire statute by alleging its violation by the means of as many of the pro[553]*553Mbited acts as might be deemed necessary to render the pleading applicable to the evidence, without making it open to the objection that it is bad on account of duplicity, uncertainty, or that it is contradictory.

The case of Deveny v. State, 47 Ind. 208, was a prosecution for a misdemeanor commenced before a justice of the peace. This court in the latter case said: “There is no such thing as different counts in an affidavit. If the two offenses could be included in one indictment of two counts, we perceive no reason why they may not be in one affidavit and prosecution before a justice of the peace, and tried together.”

Stoner v. State, 80 Ind. 89, was a prosecution on affidavit and information for the unlawful selling of intoxicating liquor. The information contained two counts based on separate affidavits, each of which charged differently the same offense. On reviewing a motion to quash the affidavit and. information in that ease, Niblack, J., said: “The court, as well as the parties, appears to have treated both the affidavits as the first and second counts of one and the same affidavit, and the appellant’s motion was to quash the ‘affidavit and information,’ evidently referring to both affidavits as constituting one judicial instrument, or an integral part of a pleading. No objection is urged to the sufficiency of what was treated as the second count of the affidavit. We, therefore, assume that no reason existed for questioning its validity, and that as to it the motion to quash was correctly overruled. The second count being sufficient, there was no error in refusing to quash the affidavit as a whole, and no separate motion to quash the first count having been made, no question is now presented upon its sufficiency.”

Our criminal code, §1813 Burns 1901, §1744 ITorner 1897, provides that “The felony or misdemeanor may be charged in separate counts in the indictment or informa■tion to have been committed by different means.” Under this section, where the State, as in the case at bar, institutes [554]*554the prosecution by affidavit and information it may, by separate counts or paragraphs, not only in the information, hut also in the affidavit on which the information rests, charge the offense in question to have been committed by the accused by different means or in different ways. Under such circumstances, each count of the affidavit would be nothing more than a separate affidavit, and the several counts considered together as integral parts would constitute one particular pleading, and like each paragraph or count of an indictment or information must be sufficient within itself in respect to the offense sought therein to be charged against the accused person.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
62 N.E. 51, 157 Ind. 549, 1901 Ind. LEXIS 195, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/diehl-v-state-ind-1901.