57 Pa. 443 | Pa. | 1868
The opinion of the court was delivered, by
The question which it is intended to raise on this record is, whether the limitation prescribed in the Act of March 31st 1860, § 77, Pamph. L. 450, entitled “ An act to consolidate, revise and amend the laws of this Commonwealth relating to penal proceedings and pleadings,” is to be computed from the time a true bill is found by the grand jury, or from the date of the complaint preferred before a magistrate, where the prosecution has been commenced in that manner. The act provides, that “ all indictments which shall hereafter be brought or exhibited for any crime or misdemeanor — murder and voluntary manslaughter excepted — shall be brought or exhibited within the time and limitation hereafter expressed, and not after.” If the statute had then simply proceeded to prescribe the limitation, it would not admit of any doubt, that the time when the bill is found is the period from which it must be computed. But it adds, so far as the law before us is concerned: “ that is to say, all indictments and prosecutions for all misdemeanors — perjury excepted — shall be brought
The order of the Court of Quarter Sessions quashing the indictment in this case, was a judgment of a court of record according to the course of the common law, and could only be removed to this court by a writ of error: Commonwealth v. Beaumont, 4 Rawle 868; Commonwealth v. Church, 1 Barr 105. As no objection was made to the proceeding by certiorari, we will consider the case as though it was regularly here by writ of error.
Judgment affirmed.