Case ID: vt_93/html/0449-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Powers, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State v. Ruth Elliott.
    May Term, 1919.
    Present: Watson, C. J., Powers, Taylor, Miles, and Slack, JJ.
    Opinion filed October 9, 1919.
    
      Criminal Law — Pleading—Sufficiency of Information.
    
    A complaint charging that respondent did “sell intoxicating liquor without authority” is bad because it may apply to one of several definite offences without specifying which, and therefore does not sufficiently inform the accused of the particular offence charged.
    Complaint, charging that the respondent did “sell intoxicating liquor without authority.” Plea, not guilty. Trial by jury in the Hartford'Municipal Court, Frederick C. Southgate, Judge. Verdict, guilty. After verdict and before sentence the respondent moved in arrest of judgment for that the complaint was uncertain, insufficient, and indefinite, and did not legally inform her of the causes and nature of the accusation against her. Motion overruled. Respondent excepted.
    
      Hugh Moore for the respondent.
    
      Ernest E. Moore, State’s Attorney, for the State.
   Powers, J.

Although this complaint specifies the person to whom, the time when, and the place where the intoxicating liquor was said to have been furnished, it is no better, as a criminal pleading, than the one in State v. Villa, 92 Vt. 121, 102 Atl. 935; and for the reasons therein stated is fatally defective, and cannot support a conviction.

The judgment overruling the motion in arrest is reversed, the motion is sustained, and the respondent is discharged.