Case ID: tex_33/html/0129-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Lindsay, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State v. F. Mansfield.
    1. Indictment for theft of a hog, held, sufficiently certain when it charged the accused with fraudulently taking a certain hog of a designated value, of the property of a named person, from his possession, without Jris consent, with'intent to deprive him of the value of it, and to appropriate the hog to the use of the taker.
    Appeal from Jefferson. Tried below before the Hon. H. G. Pedigo.
    The indictment charged that the appellee, ‘‘ on the twentieth day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, in the county of Jefferson aforesaid, did then and there wrongfully, unlawfully, wilfully, fraudulently and feloniously take, steal and carry away one certain hog, of the value of six dollars, of the corporeal personal property of one Jacob Van Wormer, from the possession of the said Jacob Van Wormer, without the consent of the said Jacob Van Wormer, with intent to deprive the said Jacob Van Wormer, the' owner thereof, of the value of the same, and to appropriate the said hog to the use and benefit of him, the said Frank Mansfield, contrary,” etc.
    The defendant moved to quash .the indictment, because the animal was not sufficiently described. The court below sustained the motion, and the district attorney appealed in behalf of the State.
    
      E. B. Turner, Attorney General, for the State.
    Eo brief for the appellee.
   Lindsay, J.

In indictments for the theft of cattle, sheep, goats, or hogs, it is needless to do more in describing the animal alleged to be stolen than to designate the owner’s pame, or the person holding the possession of the property for the owner.- ¡Such charge is sufficiently descriptive to put an accused upon trial. This indictment, in charging the accused with fraudulently taking a certain hog, of a designated value, of the property of a named person, from his possession, without his consent, and with the intent to deprive him of the value of.it, and to appropriate the hog to the use of the taker, is sufficiently certain and definite to enable the accused to plead any judgment rendered thereon in bar of any future prosecution' for the same offense. The judgment of the court, therefore, quashing the indictment, was erroneous, and is reversed.'

Reversed and remanded.