Case ID: va_49/html/0747-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Mull’s Case.
    June Term, 1852.
    1. Continuances — Absence of Material Witness. — A motion for the continuance of a cause on the ground of the absence of a material witness, properly overruled under the circumstances, though the prisoner swears to the materiality of the witness.
    2. Same — Same.—Under the circumstances the prisoner required to state who is the witness absent and what he is expected to prove.
    William Mull was indicted in the Circuit court of Henrico county for grand larceny in stealing a gold watch and cloak the property of George B. Goddin. When his case was called for trial he moved the Court for a continuance until the next term, on the ground of the absence of James Mull deemed by him a material witness. This motion for a continuance was made on the 27th of April 1852 ; and it appears that the cause had been called on the 17th of April, that being the first *day of the term, and the Commonwealth was then ready for a trial, but the prisoner asked for delay upon the ground that James Mull his witness for whom process had not been issued until the 16th of April, had gone to New York in the steamer City of Norfolk on that day, and would return in her on Monday the 26th of April. Whereupon the Court, although the process had not been executed, and although it appeared the witness was a brother of the prisoner and lived in his neighbourhood in the city of Richmond, and had been here for the preceding three months continuously, and had not been summoned or examined either before the mayor who committed the prisoner, or the examining Court, consented to delay the case until the 27th of April. And now the prisoner being in Court and the Commonwealth ready for trial, and it appearing to the Court that the steamer City of Norfolk on which James Mull went away, being employed as it is reported, as a hand on said steamer, returned to the city on the 26th, but that said James Mull did not return in her, the Court required the prisoner to be sworn, and upon his examination he stated that he thought he had other witnesses, some two or three present, who would prove the same facts he expected to establish by James Mull. That he expected to prove by said Mull that the articles charged in the indictment to have been stolen from Goddin, he said James had often heard prisoner say, but never in the presence of Goddin, were not the prisoner’s property, but were Goddin’s ; and had been pawned by Goddin to the prisoner. And the prisoner further said that he then had a witness in Court, who would prove (having been then and there present), that Goddin had pawned the articles alleged in the indictment to have been stolen.
    The Court overruled the motion and the prisoner excepted. And upon his trial he was convicted and sentenced *to three years imprisonment in the penitentiary. Whereupon he applied to this Court for a writ of error.
    Scott, for the petitioner.
    
      
      See monographic note on “Continuances” appended to Harman v. Howe, 27 Gratt. 676.
    
   By the Court.

The writ of error is refused.