Case Title: Crotty v. State

Citation: 236 N.E.2d 47, 250 Ind. 312

Docket Number: 31,033

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 1968-04-19T00:00:00Z

Document:
250 Ind. 312 (1968)
236 N.E.2d 47
CROTTY
v.
STATE OF INDIANA.
No. 31,033.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
Filed April 19, 1968.
Ralph E. Brill, Bert F. Wood, of Terre Haute, for appellant.
John J. Dillon, Attorney General, and Dennis J. Dewey, Deputy Attorney General, for appellee.
JACKSON, J.
Appellant was charged by affidavit, filed in the Vigo Circuit Court, with the crime of Assault and Battery on a Child. Trial was had by jury, resulting in a finding and verdict by the jury that the appellant was guilty of assault and battery on a minor child.
Following the finding and verdict of the jury and before sentence was pronounced, appellant filed a Motion For Venire Facias De Novo. Such motion was overruled by the court. Thereupon the probation officer filed his pre-sentence investigation report ordered by the court.
*313 Thereafter, the court entered judgment on the verdict of the jury sentencing appellant to the Indiana State Prison for a period of not less than two (2) years nor more than twenty-one (21) years. From such sentence and conviction stems this appeal.
The affidavit charging appellant herein in pertinent part reads as follows:
Appellant appeared in open court in person and by counsel, waived arraignment, entered a plea of not guilty to the charge and requested trial by jury.
Thereafter this cause was submitted to trial before the court and jury, and the jury having heard the evidence and deliberated thereon returned the following verdict:
On May 31, 1966, appellant filed a Motion for Venire Facias De Novo, which in pertinent part reads as follows:
The jury verdict is as follows:
Thereupon the court overruled appellant's said motion, and the probation officer's pre-sentence report having been filed and considered by the Judge "and finding the true age of said defendant Robert Joseph Crotty to be fifty-two (52) years," the court pronounced and entered the following judgment:
Appellant thereupon filed his Motion For a New Trial. Such motion in pertinent part reads as follows:
Thereafter on June 6, 1966, the court overruled appellant's Motion for a New Trial, and this appeal was perfected.
Appellant's Assignment of Errors, omitting formal parts, reads as follows:
This appeal is based on questions of law and no testimony has been brought up in the transcript; consequently we proceed directly to the consideration of those questions.
Appellant first urges his assignment of error No. 7 that the court erred in overruling appellant's motion for a new trial, and urges the following five causes of such motion: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. Appellant contends that the verdict of the jury was illegal, defective, ambiguous and void, and that the verdict is contrary to law, and that therefore the court erred in pronouncing judgment and sentence on the verdict. He has grouped said causes and supports them by one argument in accordance with Rule 2-17 of this Court.
The statute on which the prosecution herein was based reads as follows:
*318 The appellant was charged in the language of said statute with the commission of the offense of assault and battery upon a child under the age of twelve years with intent to gratify appellant's sexual desires and appetites and in the commission of the acts aforesaid, did frighten, excite and tend to frighten and excite said child. The jury by its verdict purported to find appellant "guilty of Assault and Battery on a Minor Child under the age of 12 years ..." The verdict of the jury was illegal, defective, ambiguous and void for the reason that the verdict did not contain a finding of an essential element of the crime with which appellant was charged, to-wit: That appellant committed the offense of assault and battery upon the child with the intent to gratify the sexual desires of the appellant or to frighten the child. Martin v. State (1958), 239 Ind. 174, 154 N.E.2d 714; Markiton v. State (1957), 236 Ind. 232, 139 N.E.2d 440; 23A C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 1406, p. 1097.
The verdict of the jury was illegal, defective, ambiguous and void as a finding that appellant was guilty of assault and battery, the misdemeanor under said statute, for the reason that the verdict did not fix or specify the statutory penalty for assault and battery, to-wit: a fine of not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000) to which may be added imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six (6) months. The verdict provided that appellant be imprisoned for a period of 2 to 21 years. The penalty inflicted was void, and the verdict, therefore, fixed no penalty. The verdict was void. It was not and is not enforcible for any purpose against the appellant. Martin v. State (1958), 239 Ind. 174, 154 N.E.2d 714; West v. State (1950), 228 Ind. 431, 92 N.E.2d 852; Limeberry v. State (1945), 223 Ind. 622, 63 N.E.2d 697.
The next section mentioned in the statute above is not applicable in the case at bar, as it pertains to defendants between sixteen and thirty years of age. The second section mentioned in § 9-1819 is § 9-1821, Burns' 1956 Replacement (Acts 1927, ch. 200, § 3, p. 574) and reads as follows, to-wit:
It is clearly apparent that the verdict of the jury is void and not enforcible for any purpose against the appellant. Under the circumstances it is unnecessary to further encumber this opinion by discussion of other errors assigned and argued.
The cause is reversed and remanded to the trial court with instructions to grant appellant's Motion for New Trial.
Lewis, C.J., and Hunter and Mote, JJ. concur; Arterburn, J., concurs in result.
NOTE.  Reported in 236 N.E.2d 47.