Case ID: me_79/html/0314-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Walton, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State vs. William Beaton.
    Lincoln.
    Opinion March 14, 1887.
    
      Complaint. Pleading.
    
    Neither a complaint nor an indictment for a criminal offense is sufficient unless it states the day, as well as the month and year, on which the offense was committed.
    On exceptions to the ruling of the court in overruling the defendant’s demurrer to the complaint.
    An appeal from the decision of a trial justice on a complaint and warrant for fishing for and catching lobsters in violation of law.
    
      Roswell S. Partridge, county attorney, for the state.
    
      Hilton and Huston, for the defendant,
    cited : State v. Baker, 34 Maine, 52; Moody v. Hinkley, 34 Maine, 200; State v. Hanson, 39 Maine, 337.
   Walton, J.

Neither a complaint nor an indictment for a criminal offense is sufficient in law, unless it states- the day, as well as the month and year, on which the supposed offense was committed. In this particular, the complaint in this case is fatally defective. It avers that " on sundry and divers days and times between the twenty-third day of September, A. D. 1885, and the thirtieth day of September, A. D. 1885,” the defendant did the acts complained of. But it does not state any particular day on which any one of the acts named was committed. Such an averment of time is not sufficient. State v. Baker, 34 Maine, 52; State v. Hanson, 39 Maine, 337, and authorities there cited.

Bxceptions sustained. Complaint quashed.

Peters, C. J., Virgin, Libbey, Emery and Haskell, JJ., concurred.