Court Opinion

ID: 9586704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:14:08.971594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:48.045655
License: Public Domain

*573Calhoun, Judge,
dissenting:
Being of the opinion that the conclusion reached in the majority opinion is indefensible in the year 1960, I register my dissent respectfully.
The majority opinion states that ‘ ‘thé sentence, judgment and commitment are * * * void.” (Italics supplied.) I do not understand that the indictment itself is held to be void. The apparent result is that the indictment is not void, but the imprisonment thereunder is held to be void in this proceeding attacking such imprisonment collaterally.
The early Virginia cases and the West Virginia cases referred to, which raised the question of the omission of the word “feloniously” from indictments, all involved direct appellate proceedings. So far as I am able to determine, this represents the first instance in which, in a collateral proceeding, a sentence has been held in either state to be a nullity because of the omission from the indictment of the word “feloni-ously”. I simply find it abhorrent to share in the establishment of this sort of precedent, and in the perpetuation and extension of an ancient rule having no basis in reality in this day.
Article III, Section 4, of the Constitution of West Virginia provides that no person shall be held to answer for a felony “unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury.” Article III, Section 14, provides that “the accused shall be fully and plainly informed of the character and cause of the accusation.” I watched the prisoner as he sat in the courtroom during the argument of this case. He had been represented by counsel in the trial court; he had been arraigned on the indictment; he had entered a plea of guilty; and sentence had been imposed by an able jurist who no doubt is fully as solicitous as we are of the rights of the prisoner. As I watched the prisoner during the arguments on this technical question, and as I noted his apparent perplexity and lack of comprehension of the significance of it all, I felt that his reaction must *574have been: “I wish somebody would please explain to me why it is that this indictment returned by a grand jury fails to inform me of the ‘character and cause of the accusation.’ ”
If the prisoner experienced difficulty in comprehending the informative and elucidative significance of the magic word “feloniously”, I confess that he was not alone in that respect. I have sought enlightenment in law books, but my inability to comprehend the magic significance of the word continues. I am unable to find that it is required by any constitutional or statutory provision.
Code, 61-11-1, provides in part: “Such offenses as are punishable with death or confinement in the penitentiary are felonies; * * As the majority opinion states, prior to its revision in 1931, Code, 1923, Chapter 144, Section 12, did not define robbery, but was as follows: “If any person commit robbery, being armed with a dangerous weapon, he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than ten years; if not so armed, he shall be confined therein not less than five years.” Code, 61-2-12, as amended, is, in part, as follows: “If any person commit, or attempt to commit, robbery by partial strangulation or suffocation, or by striking or beating, or by other violence to the person, or by the threat or presenting of firearms, or other deadly weapon or instrumentality whatsoever, he shall be guilty of a felony, and, upon conviction, shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than ten years.” The Revisers’ Note states: “Section 12, c. 144, Code, 1923, is amended to define robbery.” It will be seen hereinafter, I believe, that it is important that the statutory language on which the indictment in this case was predicated defines an offense and provides that a violation thereof constitutes “a felony.” In any event, it is a felony and so declared by Code, 61-11-1, because it is punishable by confinement in the state penitentiary. Hence the presence or absence of the word “feloniously” from the indictment does not determine whether the offense charged therein is or is not a felony. The pre*575sence of the word “feloniously” in an indictment can not make a felony of an offense which is defined by statute to be a misdemeanor.
It is true that Code, 62-9-6, prescribes a form of indictment for robbery, stating that an indictment for that offense ‘ ‘ shall be sufficient if it be in form, tenor or effect”, as therein prescribed, and it is true that the statutory form contains the word “feloniously.” It has been held many times that such statutory forms of indictments are directory merely, and that the exact language thereof is not indispensable to a valid indictment. State v. Bruner, 143 W. Va. 755, 105 S. E. 2d 140, at pages 144-145. It has been held that the word ‘ ‘ feloni-ously” may be omitted from an indictment, though contained in the statutory form, where such word is not essential to charge the offense. State v. Smith, 119 W. Va. 347, 193 S. E. 573.
The legislature has pointed the way for the courts in an effort to strip criminal law procedure of technicalities, but this Court has needlessly failed to make its own contribution. Code, 62-2-9, is as follows: “All allegations, unnecessary to be proved, may be omitted in any indictment or other accusation. ’ ’ Code, 62-2-10, deals in detail with defects which shall not invalidate an indictment and specifically states that an indictment shall not be deemed insufficient “for the omission or insertion of any other words of mere form or surplus-age.” The case of State v. McGraw, 140 W. Va. 547, 85 S. E. 2d 849, contains an enlightening discussion of what constitutes mere form or surplusage in indictments. The first point of the syllabus is as follows: “Immaterial, unnecessary and harmless averments, which might be omitted without affecting the charge in an indictment against the accused and which need not be proved, may be properly considered and rejected as surplusage.” Code, 62-2-11, is as follows: “Judgment in any criminal case, after a verdict, shall not be arrested or reversed upon any exception to the indictment or other accusation, if the offense be charged therein with sufficient certainty for judgment to be *576given thereon, according to the very right of the case.” In discussing this statute the Court, in the second point of the syllabus of the case of State v. McGinnis, 116 W. Va. 473, 181 S. E. 820, stated: “By failure to challenge the sufficiency of an indictment the accused does not waive the objection that the facts averred do not constitute an offense.” (Italics supplied.) Otherwise, the defect is cured. Hence, the majority opinion necessarily implies that the indictment without the word ‘ ‘ feloniously” does not aver an offense; that such word in this day is not one ‘ ‘ of mere form or surplusage ’ ’, as stated in Code, 62-2-10; and that the omission of the word from the indictment renders the charge of the offense so uncertain that judgment may not be given on the plea of guilty “according to the very right of the case”, in accordance with Code, 62-2-11.
What is the meaning of the word which is being accorded such significance in apprising the accused ‘ ‘ of the character and cause of the accusation?” It is at this point that I, notwithstanding my access to law boohs and dictionaries, experience a difficulty similar to that the prisoner appeared to me to evidence as he sat in the custody of the guard in the courtroom during the abstruse and esoteric discussion of the subject by counsel. In the case of State v. Smith, 130 W. Va. 183, 187, 43 S. E. 2d 802, 804, we find the following basis of enlightenment on the subject of the contribution the word makes toward the constitutional mandate of apprising the accused of “the character and cause of the accusation”: “Under our West Yirginia cases the word ‘feloniously’ is regarded as a word of art, necessarily used in a felony indictment to inform the accused definitely and positively, concerning the nature of the charge that he will be required to answer, as well as its general classification as to possible punishment.” See also 36 C. J. S., Felon-Feloniously; Black’s Law Dictionary (4th Ed.) 744. “The term ‘felony’, in the general acceptation of the common law comprised every crime which at common law occasioned a total forfeiture of lands or goods, or both, and to which *577might be superadded capital or other punishment according to the degree of guilt. Forfeiture for felony has been abolished both in England and in the United States, so that the term ‘felony’ no longer has its original meaning; * * 22 C. J. S., Criminal Law, Section 6, page 55. In this connection I quote an interesting portion of the opinion in the case of State v. Felch, 58 N.H. 1:
“* * * What would ‘feloniously’ mean in this indictment? Would it inform the defendant that, in England, felony was formerly punished by forfeiture, and generally by death? An indictment is an accusation, and not historical instruction. Would it inform him that New Hampshire punishes his crime either by death or state prison? That would be a statement of law, deficient in certainty; and an indictment is a statement, not of law, but of fact. 1 Bishop Cr. Pro., ss. 52, 53, 274, 275. Would it charge him with knowledge of the burglary, or an intent to assist the burglar in escaping punishment? That knowledge and that intent are fully and plainly, substantially and formally, charged in other and appropriate words. Would it signify that his knowledge, his intent, or his act, was felonious? That would be a hint concerning the penalty; and the penalty, being matter of law, need not be suggested. Would it signify that his knowledge, his intent, or his act, was criminal? That would be an unnecessary averment of law. Would it be a memorial of the general confederacy among English prosecutors, witnesses, juries, judges, and ministers of the crown, in favor of life, to prevent the enforcement of a code of two hundred capital crimes? 2 Paterson Liberty of the Subject 309, 310. It is not necessary that the grand jury should thus remind the accused or the court that there is no legal or moral ground on which such a confederacy can survive the reason and object of its existence. Darling v. Westmoreland, 52 N. H. 401, 407, 408.”
With reference to the use of the word “feloniously” in indictments, it is stated in 42 C.J.S., Indictments and Informations, Section 135, pages 1028 and 1029: “On the other hand, by the weight of authority, the averment is required only when the term ‘feloniously’ or ‘felonious intent’ is used in the statute to describe *578the crime, or the statute refers to a common-law offense by name only and its use was essential to a proper description of the offense at common law; and if the crime is made a felony by statute, and the indictment or information charges an act which of itself constitutes a felony under the statute, it is not necessary to charge that the act was done feloniously, unless the statute makes a felonious intent an element of the offense; but this rule has been held not to extend to common-law crimes which the statute does not define, but of which it simply fixes the punishment. Under this rule, it is sufficient to follow the language of the statute without using the word 'feloniously’, and if the word is used, it may be rejected as surplusage and does not vitiate the indictment. * * *” (Italics supplied). See also Jolly v. Comm., 136 Va. 756, 118 S. E. 109; Staples v. Comm., 140 Va. 583, 125 S. E. 319.
The Court is adhering to a rule which has no substance in this day. In the case of State v. Robison, 109 W. Va. 561, 155 S. E. 649, in his dissenting opinion at page 565 (p. 650 S. E.), Judge Hatcher quotes Justice Holmes as follows: “ ‘It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IY. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.’ ” Judge Hatcher stated in the same dissent at page 570 (p. 652 S. E.): “A collar of precedents may stifle legal expansion as effectually as the Thurian halter. Yeneration of precedent, alone, has little utility. That veneration becomes vital when it uses precedent to illuminate the present. Uniformity in decisions is imperative where the circumstances are similar. But that uniformity does not require making a fetish of precedent. Reason, not precedent, is the inspiration of the common law. Courts should be conservative. But that quality need not block progression. Courts must not lag when civilization marches. ’ ’
In the case of State v. Stollings, 128 W. Va. 483, 494, 37 S. E. 2d 98, 102-3, in his dissenting opinion Judge *579Fox stated: “Eloquent, even lyrical, phrases are used to picture our legal rights, whether they he inherent under our system of Government, or assured by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. With that position, and the spirit which prompts it, I do not disagree. But I would like to hear some voice raised in behalf of the law-abiding people of the State, to whom crime is abhorrent, and who expect the law-enforcement agencies of the State, in all its subdivisions and departments, to protect them. I would like to hear some one speak for the conscientious and honest law enforcement officers who, in their line of duty, are hampered and impeded in their work by unreasonable rules to which men resort when accused of crime, and which rules are, in my opinion, too often recognized by the courts. I would give every accused person a fair trial. He is entitled to that and no more. He is not entitled to be coddled, nor, if guilty, to have freedom awarded to him by a court on some excuse which cannot be related to the realities of the situation presented.” The following is quoted from 1 Wigmore on Evidence (3d Ed.), Section 21, page 375: “Secondly, the complaisant sentimentality of judges in criminal cases must cease. Reverence for the Constitution is one thing, and a respect for substantial fairness of procedure is commendable. But the exaltation of technicalities of every sort merely because they are raised on behalf of an accused person is a different and a reprehensible thing. There seems to be a constant neglect of the pitiful cause of the injured victim, and the solid claims of law and order. All the sentiment is thrown to weight the scales for the criminal — that is, not for the mere accused, who may be assumed innocent, but for the man who upon the record plainly appears to be the offender that the jury have pronounced him to be. * * *. A false sentiment misapplies their energies. This they must unlearn. The epoch of governmental oppression has passed away; the epoch of individualistic anarchy has taken its place. They must learn the lesson of transferring the emphasis of their sympathies, — a lesson more than once read to *580them by the voices of their own fellow-members of the judiciary: * *
The majority opinion displays a faithful consistency with ancient precedent, a slavish adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis; hut meantime, in my judgment, justice and common sense go begging. I would hold that the word "feloniously” is not necessary in an indictment unless made a part of a statutory definition of the offense; and that, in any event, its omission in this instance is cured by the provisions of Code, 62-2-11.