Court Opinion

ID: 9564206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:56:05.993446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:16.899868
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
Per curiam.
The holding in Division 12 of this court’s opinion is required because no motion to sever the trial of these three offenses was made in the case. If a severance had been sought and granted, the jury trying the charge in the first count need not have ever known of the existence of the other counts in the indictment. The charge in Count 1, and evidence pertaining only to that count, could have gone to the jury with appropriate instructions from the court as to that offense only. The same procedure could have been followed and a separate trial held on each of the other two counts. *105The indictment, containing all three counts, did not have to go to the jury. The separate charges therein could have been submitted by the trial court to separate juries and separate verdicts made on each count. However, no motion to sever was made in the case, and no objection was made at the trial about the trial of all three charges in one proceeding or during the trial to evidence bearing on more than one charge.
The only motion made in the case, as disclosed from the record in this court, was the motion to quash the indictment. A motion to quash is the equivalent of a demurrer, and an indictment is not demurrable for any matter dehors the pleadings and the record. The motion to quash filed in this case asserted the indictment was void because it alleged all three offenses (in different counts) in the same indictment. The alleging of these three offenses in one indictment did not make the indictment void or prejudice the accused. The objection now made in this court by appellant to the subsequent trial of all three charges together in the trial court was not properly raised in the trial court. The majority of this court is unwilling to treat the motion to quash as a motion to sever because we are of the opinion that this court cannot rule on matters which are not urged and ruled on in the trial court.

Motion denied.

All the Justices concur, except Gunter and Jordan, JJ., who dissent.