State v. Patterson

90 So. 532, 150 La. 113, 1922 La. LEXIS 2548
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 2, 1922
DocketNo. 24882
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 90 So. 532 (State v. Patterson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Patterson, 90 So. 532, 150 La. 113, 1922 La. LEXIS 2548 (La. 1922).

Opinion

LAND, J.

The defendant .Will Honor, jointly indicted with Prank Patterson, Will Owens, Clarence Sherman, and others for the crime of burglary and larceny, was tried by jury, convicted, and sentenced to serve a term of 14 years at hard labor in the state penitentiary. He has appealed, and relies, for the reversal of the verdict and sentence against him, upon a number of bills of exception.

[1,2] BUI of Exception No. 1. Defendant moved to quash the indictment in this case on the ground that it is indorsed, “True bill,” instead of, “A true bill,” and therefore fails to state the proper finding of the grand jury as to just what kind of a bill the grand jury intended to present; and upon the further ground that said indictment is not properly signed by the foreman of the grand jury in his official capacity.

The indorsement on the indictment is as follows:

“No. 2607. The State of Louisiana v. Frank Patterson et al. Indictment for breaking and entering in the nighttime, June 27, 1921. Pore-naan of the Grand Jury, Parish of-, True bill. [Signed] Rudolph Montz, Foreman. Piled July 27, 1921. [Signed] J. T. Boudouin, Clerk of Court.”

The minutes show that the trial judge appointed Rudolph Montz foreman of the grand jury. The indorsement on the indictment shows that he signed same as “Foreman.” “True bill,” omitting “A,” will suffice-. “Foreman,” without mention of the official character, is sufficient, because the latter appears of record. Bish. New Crim. Proc. c. 46, pp. 414, 415.

[3] The motion to quash was properly overruled.

Bill of Exception No. 2. This bill was reserved to the ruling of the lower judge refusing to grant the accused, Will Honor, a continuance on the ground that the regular jury panel drawn for the special criminal term of the court beginning June 27, 1921, was incompetent to try the case, for the reason that some of the members of said jury had served in the case as against the other accused, Prank Patterson, Will Owens, and Clarence Sherman, and that the rest of the jury panel had heard the evidence in that case.

The defendant asked for a severance, and the same was granted by the court. The same jury panel drawn to serve for the week during which this case was fixed for trial would necessarily have to try this case, and the accused was entitled to examine all jurors on their voir dire and to challenge all who were not competent, and, when the regular panel was exhausted, the court ordered tales jurors to be drawn. Out of 28 regular jurors the defendant accepted 6 without objection of any kind, and out of 10 tales jurors the defendant accepted 6 without protest. The record, therefore, shows that he was not compelled, by the overruling of the motion for continuance, to accept any but fair and impartial jurors on the panel that tried his case, and that therefore he suffered no injury by the action of the judge a, quo in denying his motion for a continuance. In fact, in refusing the continuance, the defendant was relegated to the only proper relief offered him by law, the opportunity to test, by examination on their voir dire, the jurors [119]*119presented to try the ease, in order to ascertain their fitness to serve as jurors.

Bill of Exception No. 3. Defendant filed a motion to quash the indictment in this case, because said indictment charges no crime known to the law, and for the further reason that more than one crime is charged in one and the same count.

[4] An inspection of the indictment shows that the crimes of burglary and larceny are charged in the same count, which also includes a charge against Clarence Sherman and Will Honor as accessories before the fact. As this latter charge was nolle prosequied by the district attorney, before the ease was tried, and as burglary and larceny can be charged in the same count of an indictment without rendering the same amenable to the charge of duplicity, the motion to quash was properly overruled. State v. Nicholls, 37 La. Ann. 779; State v. Brown, 35 La. Ann. 1059; State v. Johnson, 34 La. Ann. 49; State v. Depass, 31 La. Ann. 489; Bishop, Crim. Proc. § 439; Bishop, Cr. Law, § 1062; Wharton, Cr. Law, §§ 560-565, 616, 1615.

[5] Bill of Exception No. 4. When the district attorney entered a nolle prosequi as to the charge of accessories before the fact made against Sherman and the defendant Will Honor, counsel for defendant requested the court “to instruct the jury to write on the reverse of the indictment a verdict of not guilty, as to being charged as an accessory before the fact.”

The nolle prosequi in this ease was entered prior to the trial and before any evidence was submitted to the jury, and we are at a loss to understand how a jury, under such circumstances, could return a verdict of not guilty, or by what authority a trial judge could order them to do so. Under the circumstances, the nolle prosequi entered amounted to a dismissal of the charge contained in the count of the indictment as to defendant being an accessory before the fact, and the state was at liberty to proceed with the case as to the charge of burglary and larceny included in the same count. Bishop, New Cr. Law, c. 94.

[6] Bill of Exception No. 5. This bill was reserved to the charge of the trial judge to the jury, and there is a disagreement between counsel' for defendant and the judge a quo as to the instructions actually given by him. As the charge is not in the record, the statement of the trial judge must be accepted. The charge was as follows, as shown by the per curiam in the bill of exceptions:

“A party who is present at the commission of the crime becomes a principal. Just like two parties who would go together to kill or assassinate a person, and one of them did the shooting, the other one with him, although he did not have a gun, is as much a principal, and as guilty as the one who fired the shot.”

The statement of counsel for defendant made in the bill is to the effect that the district judge added to the above charge the words, “and become an accessory by being there for that particular purpose.”

The objection urged by counsel is not to the portion of the charge which the district judge asserts that he made, but to that part of the charge which he denies having given to the jury.

[7] Bill of Exception No. 6. This bill was reserved to the action of the trial judge in overruling a motion for a new trial, the complaint being that the same should have been granted, because a state witness swore on the trial of the motion for a new trial that he had perjured himself on the trial in stating that the accused, William Honor, was present at the time of the burglary of the house of John Davan, the prosecuting witness.

It is established by the testimony of the jailer that the witness and the defendant, and the other accused who had been convicted in this case, were all confined in one cell in the parish prison, and were able to com[121]*121municate with each other at will. The opportunity to fabricate such a defense as this is patent. The sudden change in the testimony of this witness is therefore strongly suspicious under the circumstances presented.

In the case of the State v. Washington et al., 108 La. 226, 32 South. 396, the court said:

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Bluebook (online)
90 So. 532, 150 La. 113, 1922 La. LEXIS 2548, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-patterson-la-1922.