{ "id": 1882923, "name": "Barton vs. The State", "name_abbreviation": "Barton v. State", "decision_date": "1874-11", "docket_number": "", "first_page": "68", "last_page": "73", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "29 Ark. 68" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark.", "id": 8808, "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "11 Ind., 195", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ind.", "case_ids": [ 1486812 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ind/11/0195-01" ] }, { "cite": "6 Ala., 846", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ala.", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "14 Cal., 101", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Cal.", "case_ids": [ 2238414 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/cal/14/0101-01" ] }, { "cite": "11 Humph., 39", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Hum.", "case_ids": [ 11265987 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/tenn/30/0039-01" ] }, { "cite": "24 Ark., 210", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 8726697 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/24/0210-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 477, "char_count": 9221, "ocr_confidence": 0.497, "pagerank": { "raw": 5.341691432553631e-07, "percentile": 0.94323279079205 }, "sha256": "d4f9303acc48e00f72e20e5000cbb04139ac702fbc6007a4b168542d73db6f17", "simhash": "1:a772e661661556f3", "word_count": 1574 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T18:06:09.246736+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Barton vs. The State." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "English, C. J.\nThe appellant was indicted in the criminal court of Pulaski county, as follows:\n\u201cThe grand jury of Pulaski county, in the name and by the authority of the state of Arkansas,.accuse John Barton of the crime of larceny, committed as follows, viz. : The said John Barton, on the ninth day of July, A. D. 1872, in the county and state aforesaid, one hundred and thirty dollars, the property of Joseph Schaer, from the person of the said Joseph Schaer, then and there feloniously did take, steal and carry away, against the peace and dignity of the state of Arkansas.\u201d\nThe appellant entered a demurrer to the indictment, in short upon the record, which he subsequently withdrew, and pleaded not guilty. He was tried by a jury, found guilty, and moved in arrest of judgment, on the ground that the facts stated in the indictment did not constitute a public offense. The motion was overruled, and he was sentenced to the penitentiary.\nThe objection to the indictment is, that it does not specifically describe the money alleged to have been stolen. The appellant is charged with stealing \u201c one hundred and thirty dollars,\u201d etc. Whether the subject of the larceny was coin, Hnited States treasury notes, or bank notes, is not alleged. If the term \u201c dollars \u201d may be said to have a legal meaning, and to import the national coin (Roane v. Green et al., 24 Ark., 210), we are left to conjecture what kind of coin the appellant \u2022was charged with stealing.\nIt is a loose attempt at a code indictment.\nThe code provides that, \u201c The only ground upon which a judgment shall be arrested is, that the facts stated in the indictment do not constitute a public offense within the jurisdiction of the court; and the court may arrest the judgment without motion on observing such defect.\u201d Gantt\u2019s Dig., sec. 1975.\nWhat is the meaning of this section of the code? To charge a man with shooting at the moon would not be charging, him with a public offense. To charge him with stealing in Texas would not be charging an offense within the jurisdiction of an Arkansas court. To charge a man with larceny merely would be charging him with a public offense by a technical name only. Is it in such instances or similar instances only, that the judgment may be arrested? We think not. Such could not have been the intention of the framers of the code. It requires certain material facts to make any public offense of whatever name, and these facts, well ascertained in law, and easily apprehended by ordinary intelligence, should be alleged in the indictment, whether framed under the code of under the common law.\nOur code provisions in relation to indictments, arrest of judgment, etc., were taken from the Kentucky code. Rhodus et al. v. Commonwealth, 2 Duvall (Ky.), 159, was an indictment for the larceny of treasury notes, etc., and there was as in this case, a motion in arrest of judgment on a verdict- of guilty. The court said:\n\u201c On the suject of indictments, our criminal code recognized and established the modem common law, rightly understood arid rationally applied. It dispenses with form and requires substance only. And what is now substance at common law, is substance und\u00e9r the code \u2014 and that is every fact necessary to constitute the specific crime charged \u2014 alleged with only such precision as, 1st. To enable the court to see that, admitting the facts, it has jurisdiction, and that the imputed -crime.has been committed by the accused. 2d. To enable the accused to understand the precise charge, and without surprise to prepare for defense against the proof which may be admissible to sustain that specific charge; and, 3d. To make the verdict and judgment certainly available as a bar to .any subsequent prosecution for the the same criminal act.\u201d\nIn the case quoted from, the appellants were charged with stealing \u201c one lot of treasury notes, called greenbacks, the issue of the treasury of the United States of America, and one lot of Kentucky bank notes, and fifteen dollars in gold -coin.\u201d\nThis charge was more specific than the charge in the indictment now before us.\nThe court, after making the general remarks on the subject ,of indictments above quoted, said: \u201cAccording to this test(l the indictment in this case seems to us insufficient to authorize conviction.\n\u201c One lot of treasury notes, without any specification of denomination, number or value, is too indefinite for the identification of the thing taken,-or of any part of it; and \u25a0one lot of Kentucky bank notes, without even a specification \u25a0of the bank, is still more indefinite.\n\u201c Neither of these charges sufficiently notified the accused -of the facts to be proved; and a conviction on either of them might not be availably pleaded in bar of another indictment for the same offense. A minute description of all the treasury and bank notes might be impossible, and, therefore is not required. But a nearer approach to it than this indictment makes may be presumed to have been easy, and ought to be required. A specification of even one of the notes in each lot, so as to identify it, might be sufficient to answer the ends -of the test just defined.\n\u201c Nor can fifteen dollars in gold coin, without any specification of the number of pieces, or of the character or identity of the coin, or of any portion of it, be deemed sufficient for all the purposes of the law.\u201d\nIn The State v. Longbottom, 11 Humph., 39, the accused was-charged with stealing \u201c ten dollars, good and lawful money of the state of Tennessee,\u201d and on conviction the judgment was-arrested and the state appealed.\nThe supreme court of Tennessee said: \u201c Where personal chattels are the subject of an offense, as in larceny, they must-be described specifically by the names usually appropriated to-them, and the number and value of each species or particular' kind of goods stated (2 Hale, 182-3; Arch. Cr. Pl., 49). Money should be specified as so many pieces of the current-gold or silver coin of the realm. And the species of coin must be stated by its appropriate name. Arch., 50.\u201d The-court held that the subject of the larceny was insufficiently described, and that the judgment was properly arrested.\nIn The People v. Ball, 14 Cal., 101, the subject of the larcen3r was described as \u201c three thousand dollars, lawful money of the United States.\u201d The court said: \u201c This description is not. Sufficient. In an indictment for larceny, money should be-described as so many pieces of the current gold or silver coin of the country; of a particular denomination according to the-facts. The species of coin must be specified (Arch. Cr. Pl., 61; Whart. Cr. Law, 132).\u201d\nIn The State v. Murphy, 6 Ala., 846, the subject of the larceny was thus described: \u201c Sundry pieces of silver coin, made-current by law, usage and custom within the state of Alabama, amounting together to the sum of five hundred and thirty dollars and fifteen cents, of the value,\u201d etc., and this was held to-be insufficient.\nIn McKane v. The State, 11 Ind., 195, the accused was-charged with stealing \u201c sixty dollars of the current gold coin of the United States,\u201d etc. The court recognized the general rule as to the description of coin when the subject of larceny, but said: \u201cWe have a piece of money of the gold coin called a dollar; and is it not just as intelligible to say \u2018 sixty dollars of the gold coin,\u2019 as to say \u2018 sixty pieces of gold coin called sixty dollars ? \u2019 In our opinion the indictment is unobjectionable.\u201d\nMi\u2019. Bishop, commenting on this case, says: \u201cIf the-expression\u2018sixty dollars of the current gold coin of the United States\u2019 really meant, as the court seem to have understood it-to mean, that the theft was of sixty distinct pieces of gold coin, each piece being of the value of a dollar, then the indictment was good according to the general doctrine.\u201d\nBut this Indiana indictment, it may be observed, is more-specific in the description of the subject of the larceny than the one before us. \u201c Sixty dollars of the current gold coin of the United States of the value of sixty dollars,\u201d is a much-more definite description of money than \u201c one hundred and thirty dollars, of the value of one hundred and thirty dollars.\u201d\nWe can find in no text book of precedents for indictments, as loose and vague a description of money when the subject-of larceny, as in the indictment before us.\nThe judgment must be reversed, and the cause remanded to-the Pulaski circuit court (to which the jurisdiction of the Pulaski criminal court is transferred by the new constitution), with instructions to the court to arrest the judgment, and hold the appellant subject to a new indictment.", "type": "majority", "author": "English, C. J." } ], "attorneys": [ "Pick Gantt, for appellant.", "Hughes, Attorney General, contra." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "Barton vs. The State.\n1. Criminal Pleading: Gertainty requisite in an indictment.\nAn indictment for larceny, describing tlie subject of the larceny as one hundred and thirty dollars, etc., without any specification as to the kind of money, is insufficient on demurrer, or motion in arrest of judgment.\n3. \u2014The provisions of the code, sec. 1975, Gantt\u2019s Dig., require that every material fact necessary to constitute an offense, be alleged in the indictment.\nAPPEAL from Pulaski Criminal Court.\nHon. Charles P. Redmond, Judge of the Criminal Court.\nPick Gantt, for appellant.\nHughes, Attorney General, contra." }, "file_name": "0068-01", "first_page_order": 66, "last_page_order": 71 }