Case ID: ala-app_5/html/0229-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PELHAM, J. —", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jordan v. The State.
    
      Permitting Stock to Run at Large.
    
    (Decided June 13, 1912.
    59 South. 710.)
    
      Indictment and Information; Sufficiency. — The indictment is in the language of section 1, Acts 1909, p. 41, which creates and defines the offense, of permitting stock to run at large, and is therefore. sufficient.
    Appeal from Cherokee Circuit Court.
    Heard before Hon. W. W. Haralson.
    Jeff Jordan was convicted of unlawfully permitting stock to run at large, and appeals.
    Affirmed.
    The indictment was as follows: “Jeff Jordan, a person owning or having the possession, custody, or control of live stock, to wit, hogs, did unlawfully and knowingly permit said hogs to run at large, or be at large,, in a stock law district or territory wherein live stock are prohibited by law to run at large.” The demurrers-were: Failure to charge on whose land said stock were permitted to run at large; failure to allege damages, and by whom suffered; failure to show that any damage was suffered by anybody; failure to properly describe the property damaged.
    McConnell & Connor, for appellant.
    The indictment was demurrable. — Morning star v. The State, 52 Ala. 405; Garner v. The State, 8 Port. 108; Graves v. The State, 62 Ala. 135; 1 Mayf. 37 and 439; Acts 1909, p. 41.
    
      R. C. Brickell, Attorney General, and W. L. Martin, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.
    The indictment was sufficient. It charged the offense in the words of the statute. — Acts 1909, p. 42, sec. 1; Lodano v. State, 25 Ala. 64; Anderson v. State, 48 Ala. 665; Mason v. State, 42 Ala. 543; Smith v. State, 63 Ala. 55. The general purpose of the statute and the necessary ingredient of a similar statute are set out in Ghent’s Gase, 96 Ala. 17, which, however, are not parts of tin* offense for which the appellant was indicted.
   PELHAM, J. —

The defendant ivas convicted for a violation of the act approved August 39, 1909 (Acts Ala. Sp. Sess. 1909, pp. 41, 42), providing that it shall be a misdemeanor for a person owning, or having in his custody or control, live stock, to permit such stock to run at large in any stock law district .or territory in which such stock are prohibited by Law to run at large. The appeal is on the record without a bill of exceptions. The contention of appellant is that the indictment is not sufficient, and that the court was in error in overruling demurrers to it.

Section 1 of the act (Acts 1909, p. 42), which creates the offense, specifically prescribes what shall constitute the offense, and the indictment is in the language of that section of the statute creative and descriptive of the offense. It has been repeatedly held that, when the language used in the indictment pursues the words in the statute providing and describing the elements of the offense, it is entirely sufficient. — Yancy v. State, 63 Ala. 141; Weaver v. State, 79 Ala. 279; Johnson v. State, 152 Ala. 46, 44 South. 670; Kimbell v. State, 165 Ala. 118, 51 South. 16; Smith v. State, 63 Ala. 55; Traylor v. State, 100 Ala. 142, 14 South. 634; Block v. State, 66 Ala. 493; Holly v. State, 54 Ala. 238; Murrell v. State, 44 Ala. 367; Clark v. State, 19 Ala. 552. The demurrers to tbe indictment were properly overruled, and, no error appearing in tbe record, tbe case will be affirmed.

Affirmed.