Houpt v. State

140 S.W. 294, 100 Ark. 409, 1911 Ark. LEXIS 372
Supreme Court of Arkansas·Decided October 23, 1911·Published·Cited by 19 cases

Opinion

Frauenthal, J.

The defendant, Sid Houpt, sheriff of Garland County, was indicted by the grand jury of that county charged with the crime of escape. He was convicted of that offense by a petit jury, who assessed against him a fine of one dollar and imprisonment of one hour in the county jail. A iudgment was thereupon rendered, adjudging him to pay said fine, undergo said imprisonment and removing him from office. He seeks by this appeal to obtain a reversal of that judgment.

The indictment alleged that the crime of escape was commtted by sa'd defendant as follows: “The said Sid Houpt, in the county and State aforesaid, on the 15th day of February, 1911, being then and there sheriff and jailer of Garland County, and then and-there, as such sheriff and jailer, having the lawful custody and charge of one Ben Murray, by authority of a warrant of commitment which had been issued by J. P. Randolph, on the 2d day of January, 1911, who was then and there coroner of said county, and issued said warrant of commitment as such coroner, charging therein the said Ben Murray with the crime of murder, which said warrant had been duly issued as aforesaid upon the verdict of the coroner’s jury of said county, duly impaneled, rendered upon an inquisition duly held over the dead body of one Oscar Chitwood by the said coroner’s jury on the 26th day of December, 1910, and until the 2d day of January, 1911; also by virtue of an order and judgment of the circuit court of Garland County, Arkansas, duly made and entered on the 31st day of January, 1911, upon hearing of the application for bail made by the said Ben Murray to W. H. Evans, judge of the said circuit court; that said order and judgment remanded the said Ben Murray to the custody of the sheriff of Garland County to be held and detained by him under said warrant of commitment issued by said coroner as aforesaid; the said Sid Houpt, in the county and State aforesaid, on the 15th of January, 1911, being then and there the sheriff and jailer of said county as aforesaid, and then and there having the lawful custody and charge of the said Ben Murray as aforesaid, did then and there unlawfully, voluntarily and contemptuously permit and suffer the said Ben Murray to escape from his custody and to go at large wheresoever he would; whereby the said Ben Murray did then and there escape from said custody and go at large wheresoever he would. Contrary to the duties of the said Sid Houpt and against the peace and dignity of the State of Arkansas.’’

The defendant contends that the indictment does not state facts sufficient to constitute a public offense, and in the lower court he filed a motion to arrest the judgment upon that ground. He urges that the indictment does not show that the commitment, so issued by the coroner of Garland County, under which said Ben Murray was alleged to have been held by defendant was a lawful warrant, for the reason that it does not allege that the crime with which said Murray was charged” was committed in Garland County. The prosecution in this case is based upon section 1683 of Kiyby’s Digest, which reads as follows: “If any officer, or his under officer or deputy, having the lawful custody of any prisoner for any cause whatever, shall voluntarily suffer or permit or connive at the escape of such prisoner from his custody or permit him to go at large, he shall, upon conviction, be punished in the same manner as if convicted of aiding or assisting such prisoner to escape. ” The offense charged by this indictment against the defendant is one created by statute. An' indictment for a statutory offense must state all the ingredients essential to constitute such offense, but it is sufficient ordinarily to follow the language of the statute in charging the statutory offense. One of the essential elements constituting the crime of escape is that the prisoner was in the lawful custody of the officer, and this must appear from the allegations of the indictment. It is, however, sufficient to meet this requirement by general averments in the language of the statute that the prisoner was in the lawful custody of the officer. (16 Cyc. 544). By the provisions of our criminal code, an indictment is sufficient if it contains “a statement of the acts constituting the offense in ordinary and concise language, in such a manner as to enable a person of common understanding to know what is intended, ” and if the “act or omission charged is stated with such a degree of certainty as to enable the court to pronounce judgment of conviction according to the rights of the case.” (Kirby’s Digest, sections 2228 and 2243). The indictment in the case at bar charged that the defendant, as sheriff and jailer of Garland County, had in his lawful custody one Ben Murray by virtue of a warrant of commitment issued by the coroner of said county, charging said Murray with the crime of murder, in pursuance of a verdict of a coroner’s jury of said county rendered upon an inquisition held over the dead body of one Oscar Chitwood. It also alleged that said Murray was remanded by the circuit judge of said county to the custody of the defendant, to be held and detained under said warrant of commitment. These allegations, we think, were sufficient to show that said Murray was in the lawful custody of the defendant. In the case of Martin v. State, 32 Ark. 124, cited by counsel for defendant to sustain their contention, an indictment was returned for negligent escape, which was not a statutory offense, but one only at common law. The decision in that case can not, therefore, apply to a voluntary escape, which is a statutory offense. It has been uniformly held by this court that it is sufficient, in charging a statutory offense, to follow the language of the statute in event this would include every ingredient of the offense as fixed by such statute. We are of the opinion that the indictment in this case alleged sufficient facts to show that the custody of the prisoner was lawful.

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Houpt v. State, 140 S.W. 294, 100 Ark. 409, 1911 Ark. LEXIS 372 (Ark. 1911).

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