State v. Miller

13 Ohio C.C. 67
CourtOhio Circuit Courts
DecidedMay 15, 1896
StatusPublished

This text of 13 Ohio C.C. 67 (State v. Miller) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Circuit Courts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Miller, 13 Ohio C.C. 67 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1896).

Opinions

Price, J.

At the October Term of the court of common pleas of Seneca county, held in the year 1895, the plaintiff in error was indicted by the grand jury of the county for the murder of one August Schultz, on the 23rd day of October, 1895, in said county.

In this indictment the accused, the plaintiff in error, wa3 described by name, as follows: Leonard J. Miller, alias Levi J. Miller, alias Leon J. Martin, late of said county.

. On or about the 1st day of November of that year the accused was arraigned in open court, and plead not guilty to said indictment,' and the court fixed the 16th day of December, 1895,. a|3 the time of the trial on the issues thus joined, and trial was had, which resulted in a verdict of guilty as charged in the indictment.

The defendant filed a motion for a new trial, which- contained the following grounds, in substance,, to-wit:

1. The verdict is not sustained by sufficient evidence, and is contrary to law.

[69]*692. That the court erred in admitting evidence produced by the State, and also in excluding evidence offered by the defendant.

3. That the court erred in the charge to the jury.

4. That the court erred in refusing to instruct the jury as requested by the defendant.

5. That the instructions given ■ were contradictory and misleading.

The court overruled the motion and passed sentence on the prisoner, to suffer the penalty attached to murder in the first degree — death.

We are asked to reverse this judgment, set aside the verdict and grant a new trial, on the grounds above stated, and we have a voluminous bill of exceptions containing all the evidence, rulings of the court on the trial, and its charge to the jury and the requests made by the accused for certain instructions to the jury in his behalf. We have carefully gone over the entire record, and have considered all questions raised in the record and by argument of counsel, and it is now our duty to pass upon and determine them in accordance with our bpst judgment and knowledge of the law.

It is disclosed that on the 28th day of October, last, Ezra Smith appeared before Mayor Rex, of the'city of Tiffin, and made two affidavits against the plaintiff in error, but described therein by name as “L. J. Martin.” One affidavit charged that “L. J. Martin”- was, on that day, guilty of carrying concealed weapons. The other affidavit charged that, on that day, ‘‘L. J. Martin” unlawfully assaulted said Ezra Smith, with the intent, and with deliberate and premeditated malice, to kill him, the said Ezra Smith. These offenses were alleged to have been committed in Seneca county, Ohio, at the times referred to, and the affidavits were, in form and substance, sufficient to charge the two offenses attempted to be charged, if they were not invalid [70]*70by reason of the omission of the first, or Christian name of the accused, and the description of him by .initials merely, as “L. J. Martin.”

The warrants issued on these affidavits contained the substance at least of the charges made in the affidavits, and commanded the marshal of the city of Tiffin to take into his custody the said “L. J. Martin,” and safely keep him and have his body forthwith before him, the mayor, to answer said charge. Such is the tenor and effect of these warrants, which were regular in form in all respects to constitute them valid warrants for the arrest of the accused, unless invalidated by the want of his first name by merely describing him by initial letters, “L. J.”

These warrants were delivered to August Schultz, the deceased, who was then marshal of the city of Tiffin, for execution, and he took to his assistance officer Sweeney of the same city, and they proceeded to the home of the accused in the evening for the purpose of making the arrest. In attempting to disarm the accused in his house, and take his gun from him, he drew a revolver, fired it so that one ball entered the vital parts of the marshal and caused his death in a short time thereafter.

On the trial of this cause in the court below, as well as here, counsel-for the accused claim that the affidavits and the warrants issued thereon were invalid, for the reason we have stated; that no person is named therein as being guilty of any offense — that “L. J.- Martin” named no one; that without a further designation or description of a full first name, or an averment that such name was unknown, or without giving some name, and saying that the true name is unknown, the affidavits and warrants were so far void as to afford no protection to the officer attempting to execute them.

Is this position tenable? If it is, it has much to do with the subsequent facts of the case.-

We must observe at the outset that there is a vast [71]*71difference between a void affidavit or a warrant, and one that may contain such defects and variances in descriptions, which, on the trial, will warrant a discharge of the prisoner. There may be such mis-description of the injured party or the subject-matter of a crime that will acquit the party when the facts are produced at the trial. But the fact that such mis-description exists, and that the facts as to the name of the injured party or description of the subject-matter of the offense are very different from the charge in the affidavit and warrant, does not render the warrant for arrest void, but only ground of acquittal, for such variance, where .it is, in law, material.

In criminal procedure at common law, if a party is indicted by any other than his true name,he may for plea in abatement of the action, say it is not his true name — that there is a misnomer in the indictment; but he must-first give in such plea his true name. This plea, known as a plea in abatement, may be denied by the State, and an issue is thus made up to be tried by a jury, and if the jury find the facts as pleaded, the accused would be discharged because of the misnomer, although in fact he may be the guilty party. But he may bo indicted by his true name and the first indictment be abandoned. But what is proven by this common law rule? Certainly not that the indictment is void, but that on that plea allowed to him as a right in the strictness of criminal procedure he was not properly described or named in the indictment. See Wharton’s Criminal Law, sections 53@ and 537.

The question of misnomer at common law,being an issue triable to a jury, worked an acquittal if the plea was sustained, from the simple fact of misnomer; but the jury did not dispose of the indictment -and declare it void, for it stood as the basis for the arrest of the one who might bear that name, if the facts pointed to him as the guiltv party.

In the case of Smith v. The State, 8 Ohio, 294, cited [72]*72in behalf of plaintiff in error, it was held, under the common law practice, that after verdict, it was too late to raise the question of omission of the first name. In that case the accused was described as “W. E. Smith" in the indictment, and the case proceeded to trial, and conviction followed. On motion to arrest judgment, Smith raised the question of misnomer, or the use of initials for his name. The court held that it was too late; that the only mode of taking advantage of that point was by plea in abatement, and the sentence was executed. This is a clear holding that the indictment and conviction were both good against “W, E.

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Bluebook (online)
13 Ohio C.C. 67, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-miller-ohiocirct-1896.