State v. Vincent

(concurring.) No blame is attachable to the Attorney General, because he has followed the precedents that have been established in this Court; ever since the passage of the act, the indictments having been similarly drawn without apparent objection. Hence they seemed to be regarded as valid. We have no known adjudication, that is no recorded adjudication, in which the question has been distinctly raised and passed upon. There seems to be a recollection that it has been, but it is not of record.

We are now confronted with the question distinctly: These defendants are charged with what ? With “ unlawfully and fraudulently ” registering. The elements of the fraud are manifold, and it does strike me that the defendant is entitled to know, when a person says he is not entitled to register, why he is not so entitled —to know the ground and the reason. He is entitled to have the fact set forth and not be compelled to come here to meet some one of a dozen, or more qualifications which are necessary under our present statute to qualify him to register.

This indictment does not set forth the offence with such certainty as to inform the defendant of what he is specially charged with, and it is therefore in that respect fatally defective.

I am very clear that the grounds upon which it is alleged he fraudulently registered ought to be set out in the indictment. You need not set them all out; one of them is sufficient.

It was thereupon ordered that the indictment be quashed and the defendant discharged.

delivered the opinion of the Court. We need proceed no further in the argument of this case. The general principles in matters of pleading apply here, namely that the mere stating of a conclusion of law in an indictment is not sufficient, but the offence must be stated clearly, from which that conclusion follows.

*562This indictment does not state in the beginning that the party attempted to register, not being entitled to register by reason of his not having paid a tax or by reason of infancy, or by reason of being already registered, or on any other grounds that are mentioned in the Act of Assembly, and therefore was guilty under the provisions of the Act of Assembly in such case made and provided. But it merely states the conclusion. The object of pleading to an indictment is to give a party notice of that with which he is charged. In all the cases that have been cited here we see no change from the general rule. The case cited in Iowa is very different from this one. There the statute is different. We have examined this matter very thoroughly, and have no doubt as to the insufficiency of this indictment, on the ground of proper notice not having been given.