Harley v. Commonwealth
Harley v. Commonwealth
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
In Flint v. Commonwealth, 114 Va. 820, 822, 76 S. E. 308, 309, it is said: “As has been said by this court frequently, the same exactness and precision is not required in the statement of an offense where it is to be heard upon a warrant as in more formal proceedings by information or indictment. In this case it appears, further, that the defendant made no objection whatever to the form of the warrant in
“As was said in Robinson v. Commonwealth, 111 Va. 844, 69 S. E. 518, ‘.Under the broad powers conferred upon the trial court, by section 4107 of the Code, it was entirely competent for the court, of its own motion, pending the trial of an appeal from the justice of the peace, to direct the attorney for the Commonwealth to change the warrant from an attempt to commit larceny of Oats to an attempt to obtain money by false pretenses. While it would have been more regular, perhaps, to have directed the change to have been made before the trial began, yet where the prisoner did not ask for a continuance, and there is nothing to indicate that he was prejudiced by the amendment during the trial, the irregularity is harmless.’
“We think, therefore, that if there were formal objections to the warrant, the court had ample power under the statute to amend it, and that the accused cannot be permitted to go to trial upon a warrant which the court had full power to amend and after verdict and judgment, for the first time, to make known his objection.”
. [8] It is said in the reply brief that the warrant did not charge the commission of any crime under the laws of this State. It is sufficient answer to quote section 4533 of the Code, which is as follows:
“If any person, whether a passenger or not, shall, while in any car or caboose, or on any part of a train carrying passengers or employees of any railroad or street passenger railway, behave in a riotous or disorderly manner, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. The agent or employees in charge of the train, car, or caboose, may require such person to discontinue his riotous or disorderly conduct, and if he refuses to do so may eject him, with the aid, if necessary, of any other persons who may be called upon for the purpose.”
The judgment of the trial court will be affirmed.
Affirmed.
Reference
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- Syllabus
- 1 .Assignment op Errors—Necessity of Bill of Exceptions.—Where assignments of error are dependent upon the bills of exception taken to support them, if the bills of exception are not parts of the record, the assignments cannot be considered. 2. Assignment op Errors—Time of Tendering and Signing Bills of Exception—Section 6252 of the Code of 1919—Case at Bar.— Where final judgment was entered against defendant on February 10, 1920, and the court adjourned before the first Monday in March, and the bills of exception were not applied for or obtained until May S, 1920, which was not within the sixty days after final judgment, as required by section 6252 of the Code of 1919, the bills of exception were not parts of the record, and hence the assignments of error based thereon cannot be considered. 3. Final Judgments and Decrees—Suspension of Judgment.—The fact that the execution of a judgment was suspended under the provisions of section 6338 of the Code of 1919, did not affect the finality of the judgment in the lower court. 4. New Trials—-Newly Discovered Evidence—Motion After Adjournment.—A motion to set aside a verdict for after-discovered evidence, not made until after the adjournment of the term at which final judgment was entered, comes too late. The jurisdici' tion of the trial court over the case ended with the adjournment of the. term, and it had no power to grant the motion. 5. Warrants—Sufficiency—Time of Raising Objection to Insufficiency—Appeal.-—-Where no objection was made 'in the trial court to the sufficiency of a warrant in a prosecution for disorderly conduct, and no demurrer thereto was interposed, defendant cannot raise the objection for the first time on appeal that the warrant did not specify the acts of disorderly conduct complained of. If the specification was necessary, it could, and doubtless would, have been readily supplied upon objection. 6. Venue—Indictments—Prosecution for Misdemeanor—Formal Imperfections of Warrant—Appeal and Error.—In cases of indictments, especially for serious offenses, venue must be alleged and proved. But in prosecutions for petty misdemeanors the same particularity is not expected or required in the charge made in the warrant, and where no objection to the warrant is made in the trial court, and no motion is made to correct it, under the comprehensive provisions of section 4989 of the Code of 1919, the Supreme Court of Appeals will not reverse the judgment of the trial court for formal imperfections of the warrant unless the ends of justice require it. 7. Warrants—necessity for Alleging Venue.—As accused may be tried without a warrant in the first instance, unless demanded, as under section 4989, Code of 1919, abundant opportunity is afforded to correct the warrant where one has been issued, and as in either event the appeal is to be tried “without formal pleadings in writing,” it would seem to be very plain that the Supreme Court of Appeals ought not to reverse the judgment of the trial court simply because the warrant failed to allege the venue of the offense. 8. Disorderly Conduct—Whether Warrant Alleges an Offense.— The complaint that accused did “unlawfully be disorderly” on an interurban car charges an offense under section 4533 of the Code of 1919.