American Strawboard Co. v. State
American Strawboard Co. v. State
Opinion of the Court
The pertinent provisions of section ■6921, Revised Statutes, under which section the indictment in this ease was framed, are as follows: “Whoever erects, continues, uses, or maintains, any building, structure, or place for the exercise of any trade, employment or business, * * * which, by occasioning noxious exhalations, or noisome or ■offensive smells, becomes injurious to the health, comfort, or property of individuals, or the public, * * * or corrupts, or renders unwholesome or impure, any watercourse, stream, or water * * *
While the offense so charged may grow out of, and may result from, an unlawful act of said strawboard company, done or committed in Seneca county, yet the specific crime charged, is consummated, completed and takes effect, only in Sandusky county. Until such consummation, the crime charged was incomplete; and until such time as the rights of the citizens of Sandusky county were actually invaded, the particular crime charged in this indictment was not committed. The crime is deemed to have been committed in the place where the criminal act takes effect. It was said by this court in Robbins v. The State, 8 Ohio St., 166, that “where a criminal act is corñmenced in one county, but consummated in another, the jurisdiction to try the offender is in the county where the criminal act is consummated, or becomes complete.” McClain, in his work on Criminal Law, in discussing the question of venue in cases of criminal nuisance, says, at section 1177: “It is the place where the nuisance is caused, and not the place where the act is done causing the nuisance, that determines the venue.” The doctrine or prin
Robbins v. The State, 8 Ohio St., 131; Simpson v. State, 92 Ga., 41; Commonwealth v. McLoon, 101 Mass., 1; State v. Wyckoff, 31 N. J. Law, 65; 21 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, 128; State v. Chapin, 17 Ark., 561; Brown on Jurisdiction, sec. 92.
The personal presence of the accused at the place where a crime is committed is not essential to make him liable for its commission. It would seem to be a well settled principle, and an established theory, of the law of criminal procedure, that where one puts in force an agency for the commission of crime he, in legal contemplation, accompanies the same to the point where it becomes effectual. That, in the case at bar, was in Sandusky county. That being the place of consummation of the offense charged, the court of common pleas of that county had jurisdiction. The conclusion thus reached disposes, also, of the second and third contention of plaintiff in error, for having determined that the offense charged in this indictment may rightfully be considered as having been committed in Sandusky county, it follows as a sequence, that section 6920, Revised Statutes, cannot, in this case, be held to conflict with section 7263; neither can it be said to in any manner violate the constitutional guaranty that a person charged with an offense is entitled to be tried therefor in the county in which such offense is alleged to have been committed. Section 6920, Revised Statutes, does not purport to do more than to give to the injured or aggrieved inhabitants of a county the right to institute a prosecution in the county in which such injury or grievance is committed, hence it is but
We find no error in the record in this case, and the judgment of the circuit court is, therefore,
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.