Case ID: va_46/html/0701-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Br the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ewing’s Case.
    
    (Absent Field and Scott, J’s.)
    1. Though at the time the felony charged was committed, and at the time of the arrest of the prisoner, the law in relation to Called Courts was unrepealed, yet if before the commitment the act abolishing Called Courts had gone into effect, it was proper for the committing justice to send the prisoner to be tried according to the new law.
    2. In arraigning the prisoner on his trial before the Circuit Court, it was proper to charge the jury under the law which was in force at the time the offence was committed.
    
      Allen Ewing was indicted in the Circuit Court of the county of Henrico and City of Richmond, at the November term 1848 of the Court. The indictment contained two counts. The first charged that he, on the 25th of July 1847, stole a negro man, the property of John H. Tabb. The second count charged that he, on the same day, carried the said slave from the City of Richmond to the county of Hanover without the consent of the said Tabb, with intent in so doing, to defraud and deprive the said Tabb of his said slave.
    When the prisoner was brought to the bar, he tendered a plea to the jurisdiction of the Court. The plea alleged that at the time the offence charged was committed, if committed at all, and at the time of the prisoner’s arrest, the law that the offence charged against him should be examined into by an Examining Court, was in full force and unrepealed; but that the Mayor of the City of Richmond, before whom he was brought for commitment, sent him to be tried by the Hustings Court of the city, and that Court had proceeded to try him, according to the provisions of the new revised statute, which, at the time of his arrest, had not gone into operation. The Court rejected the plea, and the prisoner excepted.
    
      When the prisoner was arraigned, the clerk proceeded to charge the jury under the provisions of the new Criminal Code enacted in the winter of 1847-8; whereupon, the Court directed the clerk to recall the said charge, and to charge the jury under the law existing at the time the offence was alleged to be committed, which was before the revised act went into operation. To which direction of the Court the prisoner excepted.
    The jury found the prisoner guilty, and fixed the term of his imprisonment in the penitentiary at five years; and the Court sentenced him accordingly. Whereupon the prisoner applied to this Court for a writ of error.
    
      Gilmer, for the prisoner.
   Br the Court.

The writ of error is refused.