Case ID: cal_82/html/0107-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Sharpstein, J. Beatty, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 20593.
    Department Two.
    December 18, 1889.]
    THE PEOPLE, Respondent, v. H. MILLER, Appellant.
    Criminad Law — Conspiracy — Husband and Wife — Common Law, — At common law, a husband and wife, being one person, could not be prosecuted for a criminal conspiracy between them alone, and nothing in the codes or statutes of this state has changed this rule.
    Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County.
    The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
    
      W. H. O. Ecker, N. H. Dodson, arid Wellington Stewart, for Appellant.
    
      Attorney-General Johnson, for Respondent.
   Sharpstein, J.

Appellant and his wife were tried and convicted of criminal conspiracy. The information upon Which they were tried states that “H. Miller and Minnie Miller, being then and there husband and wife, are accused by the district attorney of the said county [San Diego] by this information of the crime of criminal conspiracy.”

The minutes of the court show that after the defendants had been found guilty by the verdict of a jury, and their motion for a new trial denied, they appeared for sentence, when the following proceedings were had. We copy from the minutes: “The court at this time sentences Minnite Miller to a fine of one dollar, which the court will pay. The court at this time sentences H. Miller to be imprisoned in the county jail of San Diego county for a term of one year.”

Defendant H. Miller appeals. His sole contention here is, that the information does not accuse him of any offense, because a man and his wife, being in law but one person, no prosecution for a conspiracy can be maintained against them.

That such was the rule of the common law, we cannot doubt, and we find nothing in the code or statutes of this state to indicate an intention of the legislature to change it.

The defendants could only be tried upon an indictment or information which accused them of a criminal offense; a trial upon an information which does not. accuse them of a criminal offense was wholly unauthorized, and the judgment must be reversed.

Judgment reversed, with directions to the court below to discharge appellant from imprisonment.

Works, J., and McFarland, J., concurred.

Beatty, C. J.

The foregoing judgment and decision is hereby approved, and remittitur ordered to issue forthwith.

Fox, J., and Paterson, J., concurred.