Court Opinion

ID: 9546340
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:27:55.679053+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:19.380705
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
JONES, Presiding Judge.
In the original opinion of this court by Judge BRETT, the statement appeared that the prosecution was brought under the provisions of 21 O.S.1951 § 265, wherein the maximum penalty that could be assessed was 10 years in the penitentiary and a $5,000 fine. That is the statute under which the prosecution could and probably should have been instituted. In the petition for rehearing, however, our attention has been directed to the instruction of the court wherein the court construed the information as having been brought under the provisions of 21 O.S.1951 § 381, and the jury was instructed in instruction number twelve that upon conviction the punishment could not exceed a term of 5 years in the state penitentiary or a fine not exceeding $3,000 and imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year. The case having been tried under this statute and the jury so instructed, we feel bound to adhere to the construction placed on such information by the trial court.
In this case, the jury left the punishment to be fixed by the trial court. When this court in the original opinion considered the question of the alleged excessiveness of the punishment, it was proceeding on the theory that the accused could have been given a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment in the penitentiáry and a $5,000 fine.
In the petition for rehearing counsel again challenges the information on the ground of duplicity. The case of Bond v. State, 9 Okl.Cr. 696, 129 P. 666, not cited in the original opinion, is a case involving one alleged payment to four named individuals to influence their action in a certain matter and appears to be exactly in point *366and we think is conclusive on the question of the alleged duplicitousness of the information. See also Sweat v. State, 69 Okl.Cr. 229, 101 P.2d 648.
In determining whether the punishment is excessive we are taking into full consideration the defectiveness appearing in instruction number eleven, and the absence of alleged leading counsel in the trial of the case and have come to the conclusion that the ends of justice require modification of the sentence which was imposed.
The judgment and sentence of the District Court of Osage County is therefore modified from a term of 4 years imprisonment in the state penitentiary to a term of 3 years imprisonment in the state penitentiary and the judgment and sentence as thus modified is affirmed. Mandate will issue immediately.
POWELL, J., concurs.