State v. Kilmer

153 N.W. 1089, 31 N.D. 442, 1915 N.D. LEXIS 193
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 2, 1915
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 153 N.W. 1089 (State v. Kilmer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Kilmer, 153 N.W. 1089, 31 N.D. 442, 1915 N.D. LEXIS 193 (N.D. 1915).

Opinion

Bruce, J.

This is an action in which the defendant and appellant was convicted of maintaining a common nuisance in the form of a place in which intoxicating liquors were sold, bartered, or given away .as a beverage, and in which place persons were permitted to resort [446]*446for the purpose of drinking intoxicating liquors as a beverage, and in which place intoxicating liquors were kept for sale, barter, exchange, and delivery as a beverage.

The first assignment of error raises the proposition that the'court erred in sentencing the defendant to pay the costs of the action and in default of such payment to stand committed for a certain time. There is no citation of authority, however, in support of this proposition, and we believe that none can be found. Section 10941 of the-Compiled Laws of 1913, which is construed in State v. Fleming, 20 N. D. 105, 126 N. W. 565, expressly authorizes imprisonment in the-case of nonpayment of the costs of a criminal prosecution, and we know of no constitutional provision that it contravenes. The courts, indeed, have everywhere held that imprisonment as an alternative for the payment of a fine is not an imprisonment for debt, and the same principles-apply in the case of costs which are imposed as a part of a fine, and as a penalty for the transgression. Dixon v. State, 2 Tex. 481, 482; Bailey v. State, 87 Ala. 44, 6 So. 398; Morgan v. State, 47 Ala. 34; Re Boyd, 34 Kan. 570, 9 Pac. 240.

The second assignment of error is that “the court erred in assuming the jurisdiction of the case, for the reason that no proper preliminary examination had been terminated prior to the commencement of the term of court at which this case was tried.” It is claimed that the preliminary hearing was held subsequently to- the convening of the-term of court, and that the information was filed in the district court during the term, and that such procedure was in violation of law. We cannot, however, so hold. There is no pretense that the defendant was not given full time and opportunity to prepare his defense, and the procedure appears to have been in conformity with, rather than in violation of, the constitutional provision that provides that “in criminal prosecutions in any court whatever, the party accused shall have the right to a speedy and public trial.” See § 13, Constitution of North. Dakota. Section 10628 of the Compiled Laws of 1913 provides that “during each term of the district court held in and for any county or judicial subdivision in this state at which a grand jury has not been summoned and impaneled, the state’s attorney of the county or judicial-subdivision, or other person appointed by the court, as provided by law, to prosecute a criminal action, shall file an information or infor[447]*447mations as the circumstances may require, respectively, against all persons accused of having committed a crime or public offense within such county or judicial subdivision or triable therein.” This section certainly seems to contemplate that informations can be filed during, as well as at the beginning of, the term where no grand jury is in session nor called.

The third specification of error states that “the court erred in permitting S. M. Ferris, whose name was not indorsed on the information, to become a witness and give testimony in this ease, for the reason that it was known to the state that he was a material witness prior to the filing of the information.” There is, however, no merit in this assignment. The state’s attorney positively testified that though he had known that the witness had been present at the defendant’s place of business on the night of the raid, yet he had no knowledge that the witness had been at any time anywhere else than in the rear part of the premises, guarding the same on the outside, or that he had overheard the conversations which he was afterwards called upon to testify to, and that this information came to him later and immediately before the trial It is also shown that the attorney for the defendant was given due notice of the state’s intention to call this witness.

Section 9794, Rev. Codes 1905, being § 10631, Compiled Laws of 1913, provides that “said state’s attorney or person appointed to prosecute shall subscribe his name to said information and indorse or otherwise exhibit thereon the names of all witnesses for the prosecution known to him to be such at the time of the filing of the same, but other witnesses may testify, in behalf of the prosecution, on the trial of said action, the same as if their names had been indorsed upon the information.” In the case of State v. Pierce, 22 N. D. 358, 133 N. W. 991, we held that “witnesses whose námes are not indorsed on the information may be examined by the state on the trial of a criminal case, when the prosecution had no knowledge of the witnesses or of their knowledge of anything material to the issues prior to the filing of the information, and in the absence of a showing that the defendant was prejudiced thereby.” See also State v. Albertson, 20 N. D. 512, 128 N. W. 1122. We can see no prejudice in the case at bar.

The fourth assignment of error takes exception to the introduction in .evidence of the plaintiff’s exhibit “M,” which was a certified copy [448]*448of the record of special taxpayers and registers in the office of the collector of internal revenue for the states of North and South Dakota, which was certified to by James Coffey, collector for such district, and which record showed the payment by one H. E. Kilmer of 320 Fourth street, North, Bismarck, North Dakota, of a government tax as a retail malt-liquor dealer. The objection to this certificate was that it was incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, that it had not been properly identified; that it had not been properly authenticated as provided by law; that there was no law in the state to receive it in evidence, it not being a record of any office of the state of North Dakota, and that, if it were admitted to be the record which it purported to be, it was only a copy or memorandum not required by law to be kept, and that it did not refer to the premises of this defendant on which the state attempted to prove the maintenance of a common nuisance, the exhibit showing that the plaintiff’s place therein described was 320 Fourth street North, which was not the property kept at the date alleged in the information; and, further, that there is nothing to show how long the license was in force, or that it was in force at the time of the commission of the alleged offense; also, that the introduction of such certificate would deprive the defendant of his constitutional right to meet the witnesses face to face, and that it was not a document or an authenticated copy of a document required by law to be kept, and was not properly identified.

There is no merit in the objection that the certified record does not describe the identical property nor for how long the license would continue. The evidence was certainly competent to show that the defendant was in the business of selling liquor in violation of the law in the state of North Dakota, and to that extent the evidenec was competent. Nor is there any merit in the contention that there was no proof that the H. E. Kilmer therein described was the H. E. Kilmer who was prosecuted. The presumption is that he was the same party. “It is an inference of fact that identity of name indicates an identity of person, and it has been held that the court itself will assume the inference to be correct, in the absence of evidence to the contrary.” See 16 Cyc. 1055. People v. Rolfe, 61 Cal. 540; State v. Robinson, 39 Me. 150; State v. McGuire, 87 Mo. 642.

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Bluebook (online)
153 N.W. 1089, 31 N.D. 442, 1915 N.D. LEXIS 193, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-kilmer-nd-1915.