Case ID: va_31/html/1066-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "BROCKENBROUGH, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*JULY TERM 1833.
    JUDGES PRESENT.
    
      Brockenbrough, Lomax,
    
    
      Parker, J. E. Brown,
    
    
      Upshur, Duncan,
    
    
      May, Thompson.
    
    The Commonwealth v. Sprinkles.
    July, 1833.
    Assault — Joint Indictment — Costs—Attorney’s Fee.— Indictment against four persons for an assault; they plead severally; and verdict, that they are guilty, assessing several lines on each: an attorney’s fee is not to be taxed against each, but only one attorney’s fee against all the defendants.
    Case adjourned from the circuit superiour court of Smyth. Upon an indictment for an assault and battery, against George, Archibald, Henry and Mahlon Sprinkle, and three other persons, the defendants pleaded, severally, not guilty. The jury found the four Sprinkles guilty, and assessed a fine, severally, on each of them; and they found the other three defendants not guilty. The court gave judgment against each of the defendants found guilty, for the fine assessed on him by the verdict, and judgment against all four of them, for the costs of the prosecution. They then moved the court to direct the clerk to tax but one fee for the attorney for the commonwealth. The court certified, that the evidence in the case, was the same against each defendant, shewing the different agency and guilt of each, in the same offence; and, with the consent of the defendants, adjourned the question of practice to this court, Whether a fee of ten dollars for the attorney for the corn-monwealth, ought to be *taxed against each of the four defendants found guilty, or only one fee of ten dollars against all four of them?
    
      
      See monographic note on ‘Pines and Costs in Criminal Cases” appended to Pifer v. Com., 14 Gratt. 710.
    
   BROCKENBROUGH, J.

This court is unanimously of opinion, that, in this case, an attorney’s fee of ten dollars ought not to be taxed against each of the four defendants, and that one fee of ten dollars should be taxed against all of them. 1 Rev. Code, ch. 69, § 67, p. 241; The Commonwealth v. Hooper, 2 Virg. Ca. 223.