Case ID: tex-ct-app_25/html/0529-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Willson, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 6058.
    W. L. Robertson v. The State.
    Opinion delivered June 6, 1888.
    Jurat—Complaint, unless authenticated by the jurat of the officer before whom, it was made, will not. support an information. Such a jurat is the certificate of the officer, signed officially by him, and stating that the affiant subscribed and swore to the complaint before him. An illegible pen-and-ink scrawl will not suffice to designate an official signature.
    Appeal from the County Court of Bell. Tried below before the Hon. J. M. Roseborough, County Judge.
    The conviction was for carrying a pistol, and the penalty assessed was a fine of twenty-five dollars and confinement in the county jail for twenty days.
    
      Monteith & Furman, for the appellant. .
    
      W. L. Davidson, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.
   Willson, Judge.

A complaint without a jurat will not support an information. (Scott v. The State, 9 Texas Ct. App, 434.) A jurat is the certificate of the officer before whom the complaint is made, stating that the same was sworn to and subscribed by the affiant before him, and it must be signed officially by such officer.

In this case the original paper which purports to be the complaint upon which the information is based is sent up with and incorporated in the record. Upon an inspection of it we find that it is not verified by a jurat. What purports to be a jurat is signed “W. H. Edell,” and following this name are some few marks which resemble the letter W more than any other lettsr or letters. This certainly does not constitute an official signature, and adds no more verity to the paper than if there had been no signature whatever thereto. It will not do for the courts to sustain such loose practice in proceedings which jeopardize the liberty of the citizen.

Because the complaint is fatally defective, the judgment is reversed and the prosecution is dismissed.

Reversed and dismissed.