Court Opinion

ID: 9584768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:52:28.747792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:28.756924
License: Public Domain

*724Justice Higgins
concurring.
In 1893 (Chapter 85, Acts of Assembly) provision was made for the division of murder into first and second degrees. Prior thereto, by Chapter 58, Session Laws of 1887, the General Assembly prescribed the form of indictment in homicide and provided that the charge include manslaughter. This Court has continuously held that indictments so drawn include murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree as well as manslaughter. Hence, in a trial for murder it is necessary for the jury to specify whether the finding of guilt is of murder in the first degree or murder in the second degree because both are charged in the bill. A verdict “guilty as charged” is incomplete as the Court now holds.
However, if the indictment contains the additional aver-ments that the killing was premeditated and deliberate, or in the perpetration or the attempt to perpetrate one of the named felonies, then I think a verdict “guilty as charged” would be complete and would authorize the court to proceed to judgment.