60 Kan. 660 | Kan. | 1899
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This is an appeal from a conviction of the offense of what is commonly designated as
The complaint of the appellant is well grounded. The rule is that, in indictments for felony charging a single offense, the defendant can only be held to answer for a single separate and complete felonious act. It may develop in the course of the trial of a defendant charged with a single offense that he has been, perhaps, guilty of two or more offenses of a like kind. In such cases it is the right of the accused to demand that the state elect as to which of the claimed offenses it will require him to respond. As to the limitations upon the right of the state in such cases to give evidence of more than one offense we have no concern. (The State v. Stevens, 56 Kan. 720, 44 Pac. 992.) The question of its right to do so is not before us. It did give such evidence in this case. 'At what time, then, should the defendant have exercised his right to compel an election?
Upon principle we are constrained to believe that the defendant in this case had a right to require an election after all the evidence was introduced and before the time for the court’s charge to the jury and the