Powers v. State
Powers v. State
Opinion of the Court
This cause having been affirmed at the-Tyler branch just before adjournment, without a written opinion, appellant’s counsel, within the time allowed by the rules, submitted his motion for rehearing, which was ordered filed and the motion, and record transferred to this branch for determination.
Two objections to the sufficiency of the indictment were urged ire the lower court, both by motion to quash and in arrest of judgment. The prosecution was for perjury, and the perjury was alleged to have been committed by defendant in his testimony given as a wit- ; ness upon the trial of one Yince Johnson, in the county court of Bell county, upon a charge of unlawfully carrying a fire-arm, viz., a double-barrel shot-gun, into a house where persons were assembled for amusement.
The first objection to the indictment for perjury against this appellant was and is that said indictment fails to allege the venue iff the offense charged in the case against Yince Johnson, on the ¡ trial of which the perjury -assigned in this case was committed.
2d. It is objected to this indictment that it is fatally defective in that it fails to allege that the case against Yince Johnson, in which the perjury was committed, was being prosecuted in the county court either by or under an indictment or information, and that such an allegation is essential to show the jurisdiction of the county court at the time it was trying the case in which the perjury of defendant was committed. Touching the nature and character of the proceeding in the county court, the charge in the indictment is that defendant “ did then and there make his personal appearance before the county court, then and there regularly in session for the trial of criminal causes, with Hon. W. M. Minyard, county judge of said county, then and there presiding; and a certain criminal cause being then and there on trial before said court, in which cause The State of Texas was plaintiff and one Yince Johnson was defendant, in which cause said Yince Johnson was charged with unlawfully carrying a fire-arm, to wit, a double-barrel shot-gun, about his person into a house where people were then and there assembled for amusement, which charge stated and accused said Yince Johnson of a violation of the penal law of the State of Texas; which said cause said court then, and there had full and competent jurisdiction to try and determine,” etc.
• Independently of this positive declaration of jurisdiction, was it further necessary to the validity of this indictment that it should allege that the prosecution against Yince Johnson was by information or indictment • '
We are free to admit that under two decisions of our supreme, court it would seem that such an allegation was essentially necessary. In The State v. Webb, 41 Texas, 68, it was held that “ an indictment for perjury which charges the false statement under oath, to have been made on the.trial of a party charged with a criminal
Outside our own State, Mr. Bishop announces the rule as it now obtains thus: “ A jurisdiction in the court or other official person being an element without which there can be no perjury, this fact must, as we have seen, be disclosed in some way in allegation. On principle, seeing that such matter is only inducement, it would be sufficient either to charge in words that the officer or tribunal had jurisdiction of these questions, or to aver facts from which the jurisdiction would in law appear,— both not being required.” . . . “Assuming a recitation of the record of the proceedings wherein the perjury was committed not to be required, the allegation may be that at a time and place, before a court, etc., named, an issue the particulars whereof need not be given, between parties named, came on to be and was in due form of law heard and tried.” (Bish. Crim. Proc. (3d ed.), §§ 910, 911.)
Mr. Wharton says: “ Under recent statutes in most jurisdictions the detailed nature of the authority of the court need not be given.” (Whart. Or. L. (8th ed.), § 1288.)
With regard to the pleadings in cases of perjury under our Oodes, Moore, J., in Allen v. The State, said: “ The averments introductory ,to the statement of the false testimony, and those which are inci- ,' dental and collateral to it, such, for instance, as refer to the tribunal in which the false testimony was given and its authority to admin
How, as we have seen, the jurisdiction and competency of the county court to hear and try the case of Vince Johnson was directly and positively averred. Besides this, the facts constituting the offense which was on trial in the county court are also distinctly set forth and the parties to the proceeding named. From these allegations it is manifest that .the case on trial was a criminal case, that it was a misdemeanor, and from the facts stated this court judicially knows that it was a case within the jurisdiction of the county court, and that it could be tried in that court either by information or indictment, and furthermore we know that it is immaterial as to the guilt or punishment of defendant for the perjury assigned, under which form of prosecution the case was being tried when he committed the perjury. Whilst, perhaps, it would have been more explicit and satisfactory had the pleader informed us as to the form of the accusation against Vince Johnson, that is, whether it was by information or indictment, we cannot see that his failure to do so can affect the validity of the indictment in this case,— which indictment, in our opinion, contains all the essential allegations for a charge of perjury under our Code.
So far as the other objections urged to the indictment'by. learned counsel for appellant are concerned, suffice it to say that we have shown that the jurisdiction of the county court is sufficiently alleged; and it is a rule with regard to other matters of procedure not concerning the perjury per se, that “regularity will be pre-'j sumed if the foundations be laid by an accurate statement of juris
We have carefully reconsidered the record in this case in connectian. with appellant’s motion for rehearing. The questions herein discussed are the only ones of any appreciable importance in the record on this appeal, and our views herein expressed are those which induced us to affirm the judgment at Tyler. No reversible error has been made to appear in any of the proceedings had at the trial in the lower court; wherefore the motion of appellant for a rehearing and reversal of the judgment is overruled.
Rehearing refused.
[Opinion delivered January 17,1885.]
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