Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1912-03-12
GETS NE:W TRIAL
 ON TECHNICALLY Supreme Court Holds That Indictment Must Specify How Victim Met Death. BILL IS DETECTIVE F Case Was Appealed From Niilar
 County and May Have Bear
 ing on McYay Case.
BILL IS DEFECTIVE F

Little Rock, March lt.-Bccausc the Miller county grand jury failed io specify that Will Hunter killed his father by shooting him wita shot gun, rather than by beating him over the head With it, Joha Ray. convicted of accessory before the fact and scn- tenccd to hang Jan. 26, is to have another chance to escape the galIoWa. The Supreme Court Gn today reversed the case and remanded it with direc- tions tG. quash the indictment, and holi the accused for further acton Of the grand jury, on the ground that the indictment was fatally defective.
 It is alleged that VIII Iidnter Jr., May Is, 1911, ''unlaWiully Wilfully, feloniouly ly, with maiicc aforethought, with deliberation and p1emeditatioG, did kill and murder one William w. Hunter, with certain gun then and there loaded with powder apd leaden balls and shot. The man Killed was the father ef the boy who killed him.
 The indictment further alleged that on May IT, John Ray "Wilfuliy and feloniously, did advise and en- courage the said Will Hunter to do and commit, the murder afofesaid.' .
 In the brief for a new trial, the de- fense alleged that the Indictment lis indefinite and uncertain in this, that 1t does not show the manner method or means of the killing, or how the gun was used--whether aa a club, firearm or otherwise" And this is the view taken of the case by the Supreme Court, with the exception of Asso- ciate Justice Kirby, who dissented.
 "ln an indietnlent for crime of accessory before the fact, it is neces- sary that the indictment should al- lege the facts constituting the felony with the same degree of certainty and pal ticularity as though the per son who committed it alone were in dicted It is necessary to allege i'll such an indictment that the felony was committed by the principal. The access ory cannot be guilty if the prin- cipal is not guilty; and he can be guilty of no other or higher grade of crime than that of which the princi- pal is also guilty.
 The court cites prior decision and applies it to this ease, in this Ian guage: "In the indictment before us there is nothing but the general and indefinite charge that the defendant killed and murdered deceased with a donble-barreled shotgun loaded with GunpOWder and leaden balls. The par ucular facts and circumstances of the killing by which it might judicial ly appear that the same offanse had been committed and the accused be sufficiently informed of the true na- ture of the charge against him, so that he might be able to prepare for his defense, are not attempted to be set out
 "It is urged that according to the ordinary acceptance of the language used, when it. is alleged that the kill ing was dane with gun loaded witL powder and shot it cessarily means that it was done by shooting with the gun. But this is not the ordinary or necessary meaning of such language. Such language leaves it uncertain whether the killing was done by shooting or beating, two modes so materially different that evidence of one would not be proof of the other"
 The McVay Case.
 The ruling of the Supreme Court in the Ray case may play an import ant part in the McVay case, if Judge Grace overruleS the motion for new trial this week, and it is taken to the higher court. The new trial is bein < asked on the grounds that the indict- ment was defective, in that it did not specify that John McVay was an ac ,cessory to the murder of J. w. Eth ridge, while the courts instructions included the accessory feature and di- rected the jury to find the defendant guilty whether he fired shot or not at the time Ethridge was killed ii they believed that he knew of plot 1 L. AH@ .c