Case Name: Reddick v. The State
Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1920-02-13
Citations: 149 Ga. 822
Docket Number: No. 1523
Parties: Reddick v. The State.
Judges: 
Reporter: Georgia Reports
Volume: 149
Pages: 822–824

Head Matter:
Reddick v. The State.
No. 1523.
February 13, 1920.
The Court of Appeals certified the following questions (Case No. 10404) :
“The exceptions pendente lite in this case (omitting formal parts) are as follows: '(1) That at the September term, 1918, of Putnam superior court, he [the defendant] was convicted for the violation of the prohibition law, in that he was convicted for operating a still and illegally making and manufacturing whiskey. (2) That upon the call of said case there was no formal arraign ment nor plea entered; and that after a jury had been empaneled and the State’s first witness was upon direct examination* defendant’s attorneys discovered for the first time a fatal defect in the indictment upon which defendant was being tried [the alleged fatal defect being that the indictment charged that the offense was committed ‘on the 6 day of July, nineteen hundred and — ’]; that this was not negligence on the. part of defendant nor his counsel, for the reason that defendant, being a poor man, was not able to employ counsel until a few minutes before his case was called, and, in the hurry and confusion and trying to expedite the business of the court, the error and defect was only then discovered. Defendant called the same to the attention of the court, and the circumstances, and offered to demur and moved to quash, but, upon objection from the State, was overruled. (3) That after verdict defendant moved in arrest of judgment, and said motion is now of file and contains the allegations set out herein. And now in open court at the said September term, 1918, and within the time allowed by law, he presents the exceptions and prays that the same may be certified and allowed. Defendant excepts: (1) To the ruling of the court ordering him to trial without formal arraignment and plea. (2) To the ruling of the court refusing the defendant the right to demur and move to quash. ' (3) To the order of the court overruling the motion in arrest of judgment. And says all of these errors of which he complains.’

Opinion:
Per Curiam.
After the selection of a jury in the trial of a criminal case, in which the accused has participated (assuming from the question under review that the defendant in the instant case did partieipate in the selection of a jury), and after the introduction of evidence upon the merits of the ease has commenced, the defendant will be deemed to have waived formal arraignment, and' it' is then too late for him to demur; and the court did not err in refusing to allow the defendant to demur, nor in overruling the motion to quash.