Case ID: mo_12/html/0278-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "McBride, judge;", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE STATE vs. LACKLAND.
    ERROR FROM ST. LOUIS CRIMINAL COURT.
    Stringfellow, attorney general for the State.
    The indictment is in the words of the statute, and is even moro than necessarily full in its alie gations. <
    
    It is not necessary to specify the paiticular case in whidh the defendant violated the law. It is sufficient to specify acts which constitute a violation witHout alleging for whom such acts were done.
    State vs. Buford 10 Mo. R.
    
      Lackland for self.
    The court did not err in sustaining the motion. The allegation is too general which is “ that the defendant did follow the practice of the law as a business and for a livelihood.’5
    The allegation is not sufficiently definite, vide, Austin vs. State 10 Mo. 591, and Neals vs. State 10 Mo. 499.
    The matter of practicing law as a business and for a livelihood, as alleged in the indictment, is a question or conclusion of law which makes the indictment bad. The indictment should state facts, and only facts, which if true, would render defendant guilty. The indictment should allege that defendant practiced law and received pay therefor, and the amount of such pay, and from whom it was received unless he be to the grand jurors unknown.
   McBride, judge;

delivered the opinion of the court.

This case comes within the principle decided at this term in the case of the State of Missouri against C. C. Simmonds. The judgment of the criminal court will be reversed and the cause remanded for trial in that court.