Case ID: la-ann_20/html/0143-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hyman, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

No. 1387.
    The State of Louisiana v. E. Rose and H. Abrahams.
    In criminal trials the judgment of the Court must follow and conform to the verdict of the jury.
    Where the verdict of the jury is “guilty as accessory,” and the judgment of the Court on the verdict condemns the party to suffer the penalties ot the crime of accessory "before the fact, the judgment of the Court will be annulled, the verdict of the jury set aside, and the case remanded tobo proceeded with according to law.
    An accessory before the fact is equally guilty with the principal, and on conviction must suffer the same penalties. The punishment of an accessory after the fact is only fine and imprisonment.
    A ¿JL PPEAL from the First District Court of New Orleans, Abell, J.
    
      B. L. Lynch, for State.
    
      P. Soulé <& L. Gharvet, for defendants. A. P. Field for Abrahams.
   Hyman, C. J.

Harris Abrahams, having been indicted as an accessory before the. fact to the crime of arson, and having been sentenced to suffer the punishment prescribed by law for suoh offence, has appealed.

On trial, the jury rendered against him the verdict “guilty as accessory,” and the question is, whether he could be condemned as accessory before the fact, under such a verdict?

A person may be guilty of the crimes of accessory before and of accessory after the fact, but the crime of accessory before the fact is different from the crime of accessory after the fact, and the punishment for their offences are also different.

The accessory before the fact is subject to the same punishment as the principal offender. The accessory after the fact is subject only to fine and imprisonment, or both. The verdict “guilty as accessory,” is not an unambiguous response to tbo charge of guilt as accessory before the fact, for the v/ords of the verdict may as well apply to guilt as accessory after the fact, as to guilt as accessory before the fact, and the Judge in sentencing Abrahams, had to interpret the verdict, as the jury did not expressly find Abrahams guilty of the offence as charged, or as an acces-' sory before the fact; by supposition only could the Judge determine that the jury had found him guilty as accessory before the fact.

Let the sentence of the Judge and the verdict of the jury, as to Harris Abrahams, be set aside, and let the case be remanded to be proceeded with according to law against him.