197 So. 419 | La. | 1940
The defendant was charged in three counts in a bill of information with the crime of harboring and concealing criminals, in violation of Section 853 of the Revised Statutes, amended by Act No. 135 of 1938. In the first count he was accused of harboring and concealing three men who had broken and entered a filling station in the nighttime with intent to steal. In each of the two other counts he was accused of harboring and concealing the same three men who were said to have committed two separate crimes of robbery in another parish. The defendant filed a motion to quash the bill of information on the ground that the crime of harboring and concealing a criminal, as denounced by Section 853 of the Revised Statutes was applicable only to the crime of harboring and concealing a burglar. The judge overruled the motion as to the first count in the bill of information and maintained it as to the two other counts. The State is appealing from the judgment. As the defendant has not been tried on the first count the question whether the judge was right or wrong in overruling the motion to quash that count is not before us now.
The ruling complained of by the district attorney is supported by the decision in State v. Graham,
It is said in the brief of the district attorney that there is a distinction between the crime of being an accessory after the fact and the crime of knowingly harboring and concealing a criminal. There is this distinction, that one who knowingly harbors and conceals a criminal thereby becomes an accessory after the fact, although there may be other ways of being an accessory after the fact besides harboring or concealing a criminal. In the Graham case we referred to one who harbored and concealed a criminal, in violation of Section 853 of the Revised Statutes, as an accessory after the fact. We got the idea from the words in the statute; "harbor, conceal, maintain or assist any principal offender" — and from the fact that the person harboring, concealing, maintaining or assisting, in such cases, was called an accessory after the fact, in the original statute, Section 6 of the Act of March 20, 1818 — thus:
"That if any person, after any burglary committed as aforesaid, shall knowingly harbor, conceal, maintain or assist any principal offender or accessory thereto before the fact, every suchaccessory after the *758 fact, who shall be thereof duly convicted, shall be punished", et cetera. [We did the italicizing.]
The judgment appealed from is affirmed.