Case ID: njl_9/html/0002-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Chief Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*2] *The State vs. John I. Jones.
    After a certiorari has been returned to this court, removing an indictment, the court will allow a rule to return the record to the court from which it was removed for the purpose of amending the caption.
    This was an indictment which had been removed into this court by certiorari.
    
      Vroom
    
    moved for a rule to take the record and return back to the Court of Oyer and Terminer, for the purpose of having the caption to the indictment amended, so as to make it conform to the facts, and to set forth which of the grand jurors were sworn and which affirmed.
    
      Scudder and W. Halsted,
    
    opposed the motion, because the caption returned with the indictment was perfect on its face, and the alteration sought, was either to contradict it or to add something to it, and therefore differed from the case of The State v. Smith and others, in which the caption was amended.
    Besides, they said, it was usual in some counties for the caption to be drawn up and signed by the foreman of the grand jury; and if the present caption, which was returned with the indictment and certified by the clerk to be a true copy from the record, was in reality what it purported to be, then the object sought to be attained by the present motion was not merely to amend, but to insert in it facts and statements which had no existence in truth.
    
      
       See the doctrine as to amendments of captions to indictments, 1 Starkie Omn. Law, 212-281; 1 Clotty Grim. Law, (Amer. ed. in 3 ml.) 274; 1 Hawk. PI. Cr. book 2, eh. 25, sec. 91, page S36; 1 Saund. Pep. 249, re. 1 (to Faulkner's case); The King v. Christophier Atkinson; and The State v. Jones, post. Feb. Term 1828.
    
   Chief Justice.

This case is fairly within the principle laid down in the case of The State v. Smith and others. Therefore, let the rule to amend be allowed; as to the signing of the caption by the foreman, I am not aware that it is necessary.

Fokd, J. I think it is not necessary for the foreman to .sign the caption.

Eule to amend granted.