Case ID: nc_10/html/0184-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State v. Sexton.
    
      1 V From Northampton. J
    If an indictment charges an offence to have been committed on a day which is yet to come, it is as defective as it would be were no day laid.
    Indictments are not within the statutes of jeofails; being found by a Grand Jury on oath, the Court cannot amend them without the concurrence of the Grand Jury which finds them.
    Indictment for an assault with intent to kill, tried before Paxton, Judge. — The bill was found in March Term, 1824, and charged the offence to have been committed on the 19th day of August, 1824. The Defendant was put upon his trial at the same Term in which the bill was found, and after the Jury was impanelled, the prosecuting officer moved the Court to amend the indictment as to the day on which the offence is charged to have been committed. The Court overruled the motion, and the Jury found the Defendant guilty, in manner and form as charged in the bill of indictment, and judgment as a crested, because the offence was laid to have been committed on a day yet to come.
   Per Curiam.

It is a familiar rule that the indict-inent should state that the Defendant committed the of-fence on a specific day and year, but it is Unnecessary to prove, in any case, the precise day or year, except where the time enters into the nature of the offence. But if the indictment lay the offence to have been committed, on an impossible day, or on a future day, the objection is as fatal as if no time at all had been inserted. Nor are indictments within the operation of the Statutes of Jeofails, and cannot, therefore; be amended $ being the finding of a Jury upon oath, the Court cannot amcnd# without the concurrence of the Grand Jury by whom the bill is found. These rules are too plain to require authority, and shew that the judgment of the Court was right, and must be affirmed.