Case ID: me_108/html/0136-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Emery, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State of Maine vs. Henry Stickney.
    Kennebec.
    Opinion March, 1911.
    
      Criminal Law. Motion in Arrest of Judgment. Sentence.
    
    1- A motion in arrest of judgment made after sentence, cannot be considered.
    2. The judgment on a conviction is the sentence.
    8. A motion in arrest of judgment is not a proper remedy to correct errors in a sentence.
    On exceptions by defendant.
    Overruled.
    The defendant was arrested and arraigned on a warrant issued by Municipal Court of the City of Augusta, charging a single sale of intoxicating liquors and further alleging that "said Stickney has been previously convicted of a single sale of intoxicating liquors in the Municipal Court of Augusta on the 7th day of January A. D. 1909.” Upon conviction in the Municipal Court, he appealed to the Superior Court in the same county, where after trial before a jury he was found guilty and sentenced. After sentence, he filed a motion in arrest of judgment. The motion was overruled and the defendant excepted.
    The case is stated in the opinion.
    
      Fred Emery Beane, County Attorney, for the State.
    
      M. E. Sawtelle, for defendant.
    Sitting: Emery, C. J., Whitehouse, Savage, Spear, Cornish, JJ.
   Emery, C. J.

The respondent was tried and convicted upon a complaint for a single sale of intoxicating liquor and containing an allegation of a prior conviction of a similar offense. He does not appear to have made any objection before verdict to the sufficiency of that allegation, nor does he appear to have brought the question of its sufficiency to the attention of the court before sentence. After sentence, however, he filed a motion in arrest of judgment upon the ground of the insufficiency of that allegation to warrant the sentence.

The motion cannot be considered. It was filed after judgment, and hence too late. The sentence is the judgment of the court in a criminal case where there is a conviction. A motion in arrest of judgment is not the remedy for the correction of errors in a sentence. Galeo v. State, 107 Maine, 474, 78 At. 867; State v. Kibling, 63 Vt. 636; State v. O’Neil, 66 Vt. 356; Perry v. The People, 14 Ill. 496; Territory v. Corbett, 3 Mont. 50; Com. v. Swain, 160 Mass. 354.

Exceptions overruled.