Court Opinion

ID: 9709168
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:41:50.457123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:46.548211
License: Public Domain

Simmons, C. J.,
dissenting.
I dissent. It is a serious matter when we determine debatable questions of fact insofar as they relate to an individual person. It is also a serious matter when in the process, we determine rules of law that hereafter will apply to all persons accused of an offense *627against the laws of this state where a preliminary hearing is a prerequisite. Section 29-506, R. R. S. 1943, provides that if it shall appear that no offense has been committed or that there is no probable cause for holding the accused “he shall be discharged.” That condition is in the alternative. The statute further provides that if it appears that an offense has been committed and that there is probable cause to believe that the person charged has committed the offense then the accused shall be committed. That condition is in the conjunctive.
Here the examining magistrate found that an offense had been committed and that there was a “possibility” that the defendant had committed it.
Here this court examines the record and finds that there is evidence of probable cause. We have from the beginning to as late as Lingo v. Hann, 161 Neb. 67, 71 N. W. 2d 716, sustained the proposition that the purpose of the preliminary hearing is to ascertain whether or not a crime has been committed and whether or not there is probable cause to believe the accused committed it.
That duty the law places upon the examining magistrate. Here the examining magistrate found only that there was a possibility that the accused committed the offense. Obviously he refused to find probable cause. The law clearly requires that finding as to a condition to a commitment — otherwise “he shall be discharged.”
Carson v. State, 80 Neb. 619, 114 N. W. 938, relied on by the court, does not sustain the holding made here. In that case there was no finding that an offense had been committed. There was a finding of probable cause. We held there that there must be “a judicial determination that an offense had been committed and that there was probable cause to believe the defendant” had committed the offense. The Attorney General in the Carson case argued that the finding of probable cause had implicit in it a finding that an offense had been com*628mitted. But from that it does not follow that a finding that an offense has been committed has implicit in it a finding of probable cause that the defendant committed it. So fact-wise, that case is not controlling here. The most that that case holds is that “these findings” need not be entered upon the docket. Here an essential finding to hold the accused was not made, and that fact appears affirmatively from the record. In the absence of a “judicial determination” of probable cause and the presence of a finding of only possible cause, I would hold that the examining magistrate was without power to commit the accused for trial. Stated in the language of the statute, he should be discharged. Such is the mandate of the statute.