Court Opinion

ID: 9824656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 11:06:08.546477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:57.013909
License: Public Domain

BROWN, J.
(1, 2) The rule which requires indictments to aver every fact necessary to an affirmation of guilt is not satisfied as long as any essential fact is left to implication or inference. — Emmonds v. State, 87 Ala. 12, 6 South. 54; Mazett v. State, 11 Ala. App. 317, 66 South. 871; Adams v. State, 13 Ala. App. 330, 69 South. 357. The indictment in this case lays the ownership of the building broken into and entered in the “Hill Grocery Company,” without averring that it is a corporation or a partnership. This averment is followed by the averment that the defendant “feloniously took and carried away 50 pounds of salt meat, of the value of 15 cents per pound; 6 hams of the value of $2 each, the personal property of the Hill Grocery Company, a body corporate.”
The indictment thus framed leaves it to be inferred that the Hill Grocery Company first named is the same person or association of persons as the Hill Grocery Company last named. The rule in civil cases is that the averments “must be certain and precise so as to avoid all ambiguity of meaning and exclude all intendments” (Scharfenburg v. Town of New Decatur, 155 Ala. 651, 47 South. 95) ; and the rule in criminal prosecutions is event more strict. — Emmonds v. State, supra. While this may seem highly technical, it is the established rule, tested by long experi*144ence, and finds justification in the quotation from State v. O’Donald, 1 McCord (S. C.) 572, 10 Am. Dec. 691, in Adams v. State, 13 Ala. App. 330, 69 South. 357, and authorities there cited, as essential to the enforcement of the constitutional right that no person shall be deprived of his liberty except by due process of law. — State v. Bush, 12 Ala. App. 309, 68 South. 492. The demurrer to the indictment was well taken, and the court, erred in ■overruling it.
(3) The evidence shows that the building alleged to have Teen burglarized was closed and locked; that during the night a window was broken and a screen removed, thus making an opening sufficient for a man to enter; and tends to show that several hams and some side meat was taken and carried away; that it was traced to the store of Colvin by the salt dropped from it as it was being carried to Colvin’s store, where it was found. The evidence further shows on the morning after the burglary the defendant was offering side meat and ham for sale, .■and when the officers in search of the stolen meat appeared at the store of Colvin and arrested Carter, the defendant took to flight. The hams recovered had the stamp of the Hill Grocery Company on them, and there was evidence tending to show that •this particular stuff had not been sold by the Hill Grocery Company, but was taken by the burglar. The evidence was sufficient to carry the case to the jury, and the affirmative charge was properly refused. — Smith v. State, 133 Ala. 145, 31 South. 806, 91 Am. St. Rep. 21; Daniels v. State, 12 Ala. App. 119, 68 South. 499.
The other charges refused to defendant are not numbered or lettered, so as that they can be treated separately without unreasonably extending the opinion of the court; however, we have examined each, and find no error in their refusal.
For the error pointed out, let the judgment be reversed.
Reversed and remanded.