174 Mo. 624 | Mo. | 1903
This record is before us on a writ of error sued out in behalf of the State.
On the 27th day of January, 1902, the prosecuting attorney of Vernon county, filed in the circuit court of said county an information against the defendant charging him with the defilement of his ward.
The defendant was arrested, duly arraigned, and pleaded “not guilty.” The cause was continued and defendant entered into a recognizance for his appear
Thereupon the jury was discharged.
Thereupon the prosecuting attorney sued out this writ of error.
I. The question which forces itself upon our attention at the outset, is the right of the State to prosecute a writ of error upon the facts disclosed. Section 2709, Revised Statutes 1899, provides that, “"When any indictment is quashed, or adjudged insufficient upon demurrer, or when judgment thereon is arrested, the court in which the proceedings were had, either from its own knowledge or from information given by the prosecuting attorney, that there is a reasonable ground to believe that the defendant can be convicted of an offense if properly charged^ may cause the defendant to be committed or recognized to answer a new indictment; or if the prosecuting attorney prays an appeal to the Supreme Court, the court may, in its discretion, grant’ an appeal.” The State is allowed an appeal
By section 2711, Revised Statutes 1899, “if no appeal be taken by or allowed to the State in any case in which an appeal would lie on behalf of the State, the prosecuting attorney may apply for and prosecute a writ of error in the Supreme Court, in like manner and with like effect as such writ may be prosecuted by the defendant,” etc. This last mentioned section was evidently intended to grant the State the right to bring up a criminal case by writ of error, a right which this court held had not been granted in the condition of the law up to the time of the decisions in State v. Copeland, 65 Mo. 497, and State v. Cox, 67 Mo. 46.
"Writs of error are only allowed, however, by section 2711, supra, in cases in which an appeal would lie.
In State v. Clipper, 142 Mo. 474, and State v. Carr, 142 Mo. 607, and State v. Cornelius, 143 Mo. 179, and State v. Van Brunt, 147 Mo. 20, it was ruled by this court that the right of appeal given to the State was limited to the quashing of an indictment, or adjudging an indictment insufficient on demurrer, or arresting a judgment on an indictment, and that the statute did not include a right of appeal from a judgment quashing an information, or adjudging it bad on demurrer. It is true that in State v. Carpenter, 164 Mo. 588, the appeal was entertained, but the point was not made and in so far as it militates against the conclusions reached in the Carr and Clipper and other like cases it is not to be regarded as in any manner changing the law as therein announced. Afterwards, when the right of a defendant to appeal from a conviction on an information was questioned in State v. Thayer, 158 Mo. 36, the Court in Banc, while construing the statute as allowing an appeal to the defendant, carefully refrained from overruling the Carr and Clipper cases as to the right of the State. So that if this were a question of the sufficiency of the information, it is clear the State could