69 So. 413 | Ala. Ct. App. | 1915
The. charge was perjury, and all counts of the indictment went out on. demurrer, except counts 1, 2, and 4, which will he set out in the report of the case, and to which demurrers, were overruled.
It is insisted — a point as raised by the demurrers — ■ that said counts 1 and 2 were defective because, in alleging, as each did, that the trial in which defendant is alleged to have sworn falsely was a trial of one Pass-more “under a charge of violating the prohibition law,” each failed to show that the charge against said Pass-more constituted an offense against the laws of Alabama, and consequently that, for aught appearing to- the contrary from the allegations of either count, the said trial was not a legal tidal; was not a tidal wherein the court in which the oath was administered to defendant had jurisdiction to try the person, said Passmore, in whose behalf defendant is alleged to' have sworn falsely on said trial.
Even, therefore, if we should interpret, as it is insisted we should do, said" counts as averring that said Pass-more was tried on an affidavit and warrant charging only that he had “violated the prohibition law,” we are not prepared to say that such affidavit and warrant was wholly void, and that it conferred no jurisdiction whatever on the officer to try said Passmore; because we are aware that the same particularity in describing the offense in an indictment charging such offense is not required in an affidavit or warrant charging such offense, but that the latter is sufficient if it designates the offense by name or by some phrase which, in common parlance, describes it. We are further aware, as has been held by our Supreme Court, that neither an affidavit nor a warrant is necessary to the jurisdiction of a recorder to try a person for the violation of a municipal ordinance.—Code, § 6703, and cases there cited; 1 Mayf. Dig. 27, §§ 3, 4; 5 Mayf. Dig. 20; 6 Mayf. Dig. 16; Brown v. State, 63 Ala. 97; Brazelton's Case, 66 Ala. 96; McGee v. State, 115 Ala. 135, 22 South. 113.
The' terms “violating the prohibition law” have by common usage, both- on the part of the. laity and of the
It is not necessary that the indictment here should allege the constituent elements of the offense for which Passmore was tried, but it is only necessary that such offense be described with sufficient definiteness as to apprise defendant as to what trial it was that during which as a witness he is alleged to have sworn falsely; in other words, it is only necessary that it state the substance of those proceedings. — Code, § 7542; Code, § 7161, form 81. We think this is sufficiently done by stating, as the counts here do, that such proceeding was a trial of one Nat Passmore before the recorder’s court of the city of Gadsden under a charge of “violating the prohibition law.” The Code form for charging perjury (form 81 of section 7161 of the Code) permits the description of the offense on the trial of which the perjuy was committed to be alleged by the general term “murder,” where the name of the person murdered is given; and our Supreme Court have approved in such indictments the use of the general term “burglary,” where the name of the person whose property was burglarized is given.—Davis v. State, 79 Ala. 20. But, as the law does not require that the name of the person to whom liquor has been sold be alleged in an indictment or affidavit charging another person with the selling (Jones v. State, 136 Ala. 118, 34 South. 236; Fuller Bill [see General and Local Acts 1909, p. 90, § 29%]), certainly it cannot be rationally contended that the law requires such name to be given in an indictment for perjury against one for testifying falsely in such a case as the former. See, also, as showing the sufficiency of the indictment here as to this matter, the indictments that received the sanction
There was more than one state’s witness who testified to the falsity of defendant’s oath .in the.recorder’s
The indictment here containing no allegation of the existence of such an ordinance and no allegation from which its existence must necessarily be inferred, we must construe its averments as meaning that Passmore was tried for a violation of the state prohibition law. This being true, and the state having failed to offer any proof to show or tending even to show that the trial of Passmore was had on a written affidavit or complaint, the proof failed utterly to show that the court trying Passmore had any jurisdiction to try him; and hence, for aught to the contrary appearing, the proceedings in which defendant is alleged to have sworn fals.ely were
Reversed and remanded.