Case ID: la_153/html/0259-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "ROGERS, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(95 South. 711.)
    No. 25780.
    STATE v. WARTHEN.
    (Feb. 26, 1923.)
    
      (Syllabus by Editorial Staf.)
    
    1. Criminal law <$=>1064(4), 1090(8) — Exceptions not considered when formal bills not presented and not presented in motions for new trial and in arrest.
    Though bills of exception were reserved to admission of evidence, where no formal bills were prepared or presented and they were not made part of motions for new trial and in arrest of judgment, they are not reviewable.
    2. Criminal law <$=>l 134(4) — Questions of fact raised by motion for new trial not reviewable.
    Where motion for new trial raised only questions of fact, it cannot be considered by the Supreme Court.
    3. Homicide <$=>132, 133 — Information held to sufficiently charge time and place.
    Information, alleging that defendant, on March 31, 1922, in the parish of Orleans and within the jurisdiction of the court, feloniously killed deceased, sufficiently charged the time and place of the killing, as the time and place alleged related to nothing else but the principal accusation.
    
      4. Indictment and information <©=>110(17)— Sufficient to charge manslaughter in language of statute.
    Information, charging crime of manslaughter in words of statute, is sufficient.
    Appeal from Criminal District Court, Parish of Orleans; N. E. Humphrey, Judge.
    George H. War then was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals.
    Affirmed.
    T. G. Moran, of New Orleans, for appellant.
    A. V. Coco, Atty. Gen., and ft. H. Marr, Dist. Atty., of New Orleans (T. S. Walmsley, of N.ew Orleans, of counsel), for the State.
   ROGERS, J.

The defendant was indicted for murder. When the case was called for trial a nolle prosequi was entered, and a bill of information charging manslaughter was immediately filed. On this charge defendant was tried, found guilty, and sentenced. From the verdict and sentence he prosecutes this appeal.

During the course of the trial three bills of exception were reserved to the admission of evidence, but no formal bills were prepared or presented to the court, nor were they made part of the motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment, which were overruled, and therefore do not present questions reviewable by this court:

Only questions of fact are raised by the motion for a new trial; hence it cannot be considered on this appeal. The motion in arrest of judgment is based on the insufficiency of the information,

“because the time, place, and day of the commission of the crime charged is not set forth, or referred to in the body of the information by the words ‘then and there’ or by the word ‘aforesaid,’ after the word ‘did’ and before the words ‘feloniously kill and slay.’ ”

The information charges as follows:

“That one George H. Warthen, late of the parish of Orleans, on the 31st day of March, in the year of our Lord 1922, with force and arms in the parish of Orleans aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction of the criminal district court for the parish of Orleans, did feloniously kill and slay one Marguerite Halliday,” etc.

The statement of the time, the 31st day of March, 1922, and the place, the parish of Orleans, is antecedent to and qualifies the main charge. The time and place mentioned relate to nothing else but the principal accusation. So that it is charged with absolute certainty that the defendant, on the 31st day of March, 1922, in the parish of Orleans, did feloniously kill and slay one Marguerite Halliday, so as to exclude the possibility that the felonious act was committed at any other time or place. The information could not possibly, therefore, have more clearly specified tbe time and place. Besides, the information charges the crime of manslaughter in the words of the statute, and that is sufficient. State v. Marks, 127 La. 1031, 54 South. 340.

Judgment affirmed.