State v. Melvin

66 S.W. 534, 166 Mo. 565, 1902 Mo. LEXIS 18
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedFebruary 4, 1902
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 66 S.W. 534 (State v. Melvin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Melvin, 66 S.W. 534, 166 Mo. 565, 1902 Mo. LEXIS 18 (Mo. 1902).

Opinion

GANTT, J.

The indictment in this cause was returned by the grand jury in the circuit court of Platte county on December 7, 1899, and charged the defendant with a felonious assault. Afterwards, at the same term, another indictment was preferred on December 9, 1899, wherein it was charged that defendant committed a felonious assault upon the same person, one Jeff Simpson, and that Al. Melvin was present aiding and assisting in said felony. When the defendant was required to plead at the November term, 1900, of said court he filed a plea in abatement of the first indictment on which he was arraigned for the reason that he averred that the finding and preferment of the said second indictment ipso facto quashed the first indictment, and that it was no longer pending, and prayed the judgment of the court to discharge him, and that said first indictment to which he was required to plead should be quashed.

The indictment found on December 7, 1899, was numbered 1709, and the indictment of December 9, 1899, was numbered 1716. On the hearing of this plea the two indictments with the dates of their filing were offered, and read to the court, and on the part, of the State the record of the court showing that on August 14, 1900, on motion of the prosecuting attorney, the said second indictment numbered 1716 had been quashed by the circuit court of Platte county, and the defendant discharged therefrom. The circuit court overruled the plea in abatement and to quash the indictment and directed the defendant to plead to said indictment of December 7, 1899, and the defendant standing mute, a plea of not guilty was entered for him on the record, and the cause proceeded.

On the part of the State the evidence tended to prove that on Sunday, October 29, 1899, the defendant’s mother and his [570]*570brother, John Melvin, lived in the village of Waldron in Platte county, and just across the street a brother of Jeff Simpson, the prosecuting witness, lived. The defendant, Dick Melvin, and his brother, Al. Melvin, who at that time was only seventeen years of age, were and had been for some time at work in the State of Kansas, just across the Missouri river from Waldron. There they met one Al.’Owens. On Sunday, October 29, 1899, the three went to Waldron, the two Melvin boys ostensibly for the purpose of getting some new clothes their mother had made for them. They reached Waldron between three and four o’clock on the afternoon of that day. Al. Melvin took the lead when the three men left his mother’s home, the defendant and Owens following him very closely. Jeff Simpson was just outside of the yard fence at his brother’s house when Al. Melvin saw him and without any apparent cause whatever said, “There is the d — d devil now, I can soon fix him,” and rushed across the street at Simpson. Throwing a small bundle he had in his hands aside, he took out his knife and assaulted Simpson, who repelled the attack, knocked off the blows and struck young Melvin in the face with his hand. While this strife was thus proceeding, Dick Melvin, the defendant, with a knife in his left hand,’ rushed up behind and to' the left of Simpson and stabbed him. The knife passed through the walls of the abdomen and entered the abdominal cavity, creating a wound which confined him to his room and bed for a month, and was considered by the physicians as extremely dangerous and hazardous. Immediately after the cutting, the defendant, Al. Melvin and Owens hurriedly left the State and the defendant when arrested was in the State of Kansas, and at first refused to return to Missouri without requisition papers, but finally did so. When defendant saw the blood from Simpson’s wound he said, “My God, boys, let’shit her for Kansas,” and they all three ran off as fast as they could go, and crossed the river into Kansas.

On the part of defendant the evidence tended to show [571]*571that Jeff Simpson began the assault. That Al. Melvin did the stabbing and that defendant had no knife. Al. Melvin testified he did the cutting.

Other facts will be noted if necessary in the opinion. The jury found defendant guilty, and assessed his punishment at two years in the penitentiary.

I. The first insistence is that the court erred in refusing to sustain the motion to quash, or plea in abatement, to the indictment returned on December 7, 1899, under which the defendant was convicted.

Section 2522, Revised Statutes 1899, which has remained unchanged in all the revisions of the general statutes of this State since 1845, provides that “if there be at any time pending against the same defendant two indictments for the same offense or two indictments for the same matter although charged as different offenses, the indictment first found shall be deemed to be- suspended by such second indictment, and shall be quashed.”

In State v. Eaton, 75 Mo. loc. cit. 589, wherein the contention was that until the first indictment was quashed by the court, the defendant could not be put on trial on the second indictment, relying upon State v. Smith, 71 Mo. 45, and State v. Webb, 74 Mo. 333, this court said: “There is nothing in the section to impair, in any manner whatever, the second indictment. Certainly a plea to the jurisdiction could not be maintained. The court does not lose jurisdiction of the cause, because a former indictment, unquashed, was preferred. The right of the State to find a second indictment against the accused for the same offense, is distinctly recognized by the statute. The accused may have the first quashed. The court might, without any motion filed by him for that purpose, quash the first indictment, but whether it is quashed or not, is a matter of no consequence in the prosecution on the second indictment.”

Subsequently the same language was reiterated in State [572]*572v. Vincent, 91 Mo. loc. cit. 665, and in State v. Anderson, 96 Mo. loc. cit. 246, but in State v. Daugherty, 106 Mo. 182, in which the same question arose, Thomas, J., in writing the opinion went farther and announced that “the effect of the second indictment was to quash the first ” citing State v. Vincent, 91 Mo. 662.

We have seen that the point in State v. Vincent was not whether the finding of the second indictment ipso facto quashed the first, but whether the fact that the first was not quashed would prevent a trial on the second, and so this remark of the learned judge which was not necessary to the determination of that case, was not supported by the authority upon which he rested it and he did not advance any reason for the assertion.

So that the above cases, outside of this decision, do not reach the point now made by defendant that the preferment of the second indictment ipso facto quashed the indictment under which he was convicted, and when in turn the second was formally quashed, there remained no legal charge against him and he was not required to plead it. We are of opinion that his position is untenable.

The language of the statute is, “the indictment first found shall be deemed to be suspended by such second indictment and shall be quashed.” The language is not “superseded,” as in the New York statute. The first is merely suspended, but new life and validity may be imparted to it by the removal of the obstacle which caused the suspension, to-wit, the second indictment, as was done in this case by quashing it on the record.

Moreover, it appears plain to us that this court in State v. Eaton, 75 Mo. 588 and 589, did not construe the second indictment as quashing the first eo instanti

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Bluebook (online)
66 S.W. 534, 166 Mo. 565, 1902 Mo. LEXIS 18, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-melvin-mo-1902.