Case Name: The State v. A. J. Simpson
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1869
Citations: 32 Tex. 98
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State v. A. J. Simpson.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Reports
Volume: 32
Pages: 98–99

Head Matter:
The State v. A. J. Simpson.
1—An indictment for an assault with intent to murder, which charged the .accused with assaulting two persons, but with the intent to murder only one of them, was not subject to be quashed on account of supposed noncompliance with the seventh sub-division of Article 8863, Paschal’s Digest, which requires offenses to he “ set forth in plain and intelligible words.”
Appeal from Nacogdoches. Tried below before the Hon. Samuel L. Earle.
Simpson was indicted for an assault upon David Garrott and Mary Garrott, with intent to murder David Garrott.
Defendant moved to quash, because the indictment charged_ no offense known to the law, and because the offense was not charged in plain and intelligible words. Motion sustained, and the State appealed.
W. H. Andrews, acting Attorney General, for the State.
No brief for the appellee.

Opinion:
Lindsay, J.
The accusation in this case is an assault with intent to murder. The indictment charges in plain and intelligible words, that the assault was made by the defendant upon two persons, naming them. It charges the act done, distinctly and unequivocally. The assault is alleged to have been simultaneously made upon these tiro persons. But when the indictment comes to charge the guilty intent, the name of one of the persons, thus assaulted, is pretermitted. The indictment certainly contains all the other requisites enumerated in the statute, and upon the motion to quash it, which was sustained by the court, the judge must have supposed that the seventh sub-division of Article 2863, Paschal's Digest, was not complied with, requiring the offense to be " set forth in plain and intelligible words." This was manifestly error. If the assault was made upon both, and the guilty intent was towards either, and the desire and purpose was to miu-der only one; he was, in fact, guilty towards both; and the charge of the guilty intent towards one, or both, in the indictment, might justly be made without affecting or altering the character of the offense in the slightest degree. The court erred in sustaining the motion to quash the indictment. The judgment is, therefore, reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.