Case ID: va_3/html/0069-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Peter Case v. The Commonwealth.
    Criminal Cases—Bills of Exception—Signing.—The County Court is not obliged to sign a bill of exceptions in a criminal cause.
    Same—Same—Signing by County Court—Writ of Error —Record."8—Although a County Court do sign bills of exceptions in a criminal cause, the bills of exceptions are not thereby a part of the record cognizable by the superior court upon a writ of error.
    
      
      Criminal Cases—Bills of Exceptions—Signing by County Court—Writ of Error—Record.—In Dryden v. Swinburne, 20 W. Va. 109, it is said: “In Peter Case’s Case, 1 Va. Cas. 265, it was decided, that, as the law then was in Virginia, a county court was not obliged to sign a bill of exceptions in any criminal case; and therefore, though they sign some in such a case, it did not thereby become a part of the record. The defendant’s counsel insists, that as our statute requiring bills of exceptions to be signed confines the cases, in which they are to be signed, to cases, in which an appeal, writ of error or supersedeas lies, a county court is not required to sign a bill of exceptions in a case like the one before this Court, in which no appeal, writ of error or supersedeas lies, but only a writ of certiorari; and therefore the bill of exceptions signed by the justices of the county court in this case is no part of the record and cannot be looked at by this court.
      “Is this position sound ? If it be true, the provision giving to the circuit court the power to supervise the proceedings of the county court in election cases will be almost nugatory. The county court has unquestionable jurisdiction to try such cases; butif nothing is to be regarded as a part of the record of the case, except what they think proper to put upon their record-book, and they are at liberty to decline to state on their record-book any of the facts or any of their rulings during the trial of the case, but may simply state on their record book, that the case was tried on the evidence submitted and decided in favor of or against a certain party, it is obvious, that in effect there can be no review of their proceedings; as however erroneously they may have decided the law questions involved in this case, their errors could not be corrected, as they would not appear on the face of their record, as they have chosen to make it np.
      “If this be the law then it is assuredly in a very defective state. Butlapprehend this is not the law.”
      See generally, monographic note on “Bills of Exception” appended to Stoneman v. Com., 25 Gratt 887.
    
   This was a writ of error obtained from the Hampshire Circuit Court, for the purpose of revising and correcting a judgment of the county court obtained by the commonwealth against the plaintiff.

He had been indicted for retailing spiritous liquors, to wit, a half pint of whiskey, to be drank at the place where sold, without having obtained the license of the law. The defendant’s counsel on the trial filed two hills of exceptions to the opinion of the court. In the first, it was stated that the defendant’s counsel asked the witness a question tending to his own discredit, which question the court declared improper, and refused to let him answer it. The defendant therefore excepted. In the second, it was stated that the only evidence produced 'against the defendant, was that he had sold brandy, whereas the indictment charged that he had sold whiskey, and that the jury found for the commonwealth on such evidence; whereupon the defendant moved for a new trial which the court refused, to which refusal the defendant excepted.

*In the circuit court, the counsel for the plaintiff in error admitted that this being a criminal case, the court below was not obliged to sign the bills of exceptions, but contended that as the court had actually signed them, they became a part of the record, and that the superior court was bound to take notice of any error which they disclosed, and to reverse the said judgment if the error so disclosed was sufficient. That question was adjourned to the general court for its advice.

The general court, June 13, 1812, decided that as the county court was not obliged to sign a bill of exceptions in any criminal case, although the county court has in this instance signed the hills, they do not thereby become a part of the record, and the superior court for Hampshire county was not bound to take notice of any error stated in the said bills of exceptions.