Court Opinion

ID: 9812970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:52:45.694279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:27:22.985398
License: Public Domain

ClaRK, J.
(dissenting). The record in this case states: “The defendant was indicted in the following bill of indictment.” Here follows the indictment for perjury in regular form, setting forth, “The jurors on their oath present,” etc. There is nothing to contradict this record. The defendant pleaded not guilty, was tried, and sentenced to 12 months on the public roads. He made no motion to quash nor in arrest of judgment below, but the appeal came up solely on an exception to refusal of a prayer to- charge the jury that ■the false oath was in a matter not material to the issue— an exception which we have had no hesitation in overruling. In this Court there is no suggestion that the record, as above certified, is untrue, and that in fact the bill was not found; for, if this could be done here at all, it should be upon affidavit, and the case remanded to the Judge to find the fact. But the motion in arrest is made here for the first time on the ground that the bill of indictment is indorsed as follows: “Those marked ‘X’ sworn by the undersigned foreman and *534examined before tbe grand jury, and tbis bill found. Wm. E. Reade, Foreman Grand Jury.” Immediately above that is the list of witnesses, and the record shows that the same witnesses were examined before the petit jury, and upon their evidence the defendant was found guilty. Without any suggestion, upon affidavit, or otherwise, that in fact the bill was ignored by the grand jury, we are asked to say that such was their action, because the words, “and this bill found,” are indorsed, instead of the words, “A true bill.” The statute (St. 1811, chap. 809), which is brought forward in The Code (sec. 1183), provides that a “criminal proceeding, by warrant, indictment, information, or impeachment * * * shall not be quashed, nor the judgment thereon stayed, by reason of any informality, pr refinement.” In State v. Moses, 13 N. C., 452 (at page 464), Judge RueeiN says of this statute: “This law was certainly designed to uphold the execution of public justice by freeing the courts from those fetters of form, technicality, and refinement, which do not concern the substance of the charge and the proof to support it. Many sages of the law had before called nice objections of this sort a disease of the law, and a reproach to the bench, and lamented that they were bound down to strict and precise precedents.” In State v. Parker, 81 N. C., 531, Ashe, J., says: “Ever since 1811, it has been the evident tendency of our courts, as well as our law-makers, to strip criminal actions of the many refinements and useless technicalities with which they have been fettered by the common law, the adherence to which often resulted in obstruction of justice and the escape of malefactors from merited punishment.” These and similar decisions — for they are all the same way — are cited with approval by the present Court in State v. Barnes, 122 N. C., 1035. and other cases. If an *535indorsement that, upon the testimony of witnesses named and sworn, “this bill found,” and the statement of the record, un-contradieted, that “defendant was indicted in the following bill,” is to be set aside in this Court, because of the absence of the -technical words, “A true bill,” it would, in the language of Judge RueeiN, in State v. Moses, supra, “be difficult to say to what unseemly nicety (as Lord Hale calls it), formality, or refinement, the act can extend.”
The above is predicated upon the assumption that any in-dorsement by the grand jury is required. But such assumption is not correct at common law, and is directly contrary to our uniform decisions. In State v. Guilford, 49 N. C., 83, an indictment for murder, a motion was made in this Court in arrest of judgment, on the ground that it does not appear from the record that the bill of indictment upon which the prisoner was tried was found by a grand jury to be a “true bill.” PeaRSON, J., says: “It is not necessary that the record should set out the manner in which a bill of indictment was presented, or the evidence and memoranda and entries from which the record was made up. It is sufficient and most proper that the record should only set out the fact that.it was presented by the grand jury.” _ In State v. Harwood, 60 N. C., 226 (murder), there was another motion in arrest of judgment, “because the record does not show that the indictment was found a True bill’ by the grand jury.” MaNX-t, J., says: “The grounds taken, in arrest of judgment are not tenable. They are settled against the prisoner by recent adjudications of this Court. State v. Guilford, 49 N. C., 83; State v. Roberts, 19 N. C., 540.” In the latter ease (which was also for murder) ,RueKIN,C. J. (DaNiel and G-astoN concurring), says, as to- a motion in arrest of judgment: “The objection, if founded in fact, can not be raised in this stage of the proceedings, or rather in this form. Judg*536ment can be arrested only for matter appearing in tbe record, or for some matter which ought to appear, and- does not appear, in the record. If a bill of indictment be found, without evidence, or upon illegal evidence, as upon the testimony of witnesses not sworn in court, the accused is not without remedy. Upon the establishment of the fact the bill may be quashed. State v. Cain, 8 N. C., 352. * * * But none of these indorsements are parts of the bill, or are proper to be engrossed in making up the record of the Superior Court, which merely states that it was presented by the jurors for the State upon their oaths.” In the present case the record states, “The defendant was indicted in the following bill of indictment,” setting it out: “The jurors for the State on their oath present,” etc. In State v. Cox, 28 N. C., 440, Nash, J., says (RuffiN, C. J., and 'DaNiel, J., concurring) : “It is settled in this State that an indictment need not be signed by anyone. It is good without it, because it is the act of the grand jury, delivered in open court by them. In State v. Collins, 14 N. C., 117, the opinion is first suggested by the then Chief Justice IlENDERsoN,buit as the point did not necessarily arise, it was not decided. But in State v. Calhoon, 18 N. C., 374, it was. The custom of indorsing the bill is declared to be no further material than as it identifies the instrument, expressing the decision of the jury; when made, it becomes no part of the indictment. Yel. 99. It is the action of the jury in publicly returning the bill into the Court as true, and the recording, or filing, it among the records, that make it effectual.” In State v. Mace, 86 N. C., 668, RuffiN, J., says the indictment “is the act of the grand jury, declared in open court, and need not be signed by anyone, and, if it be, it is mere surplusage, and does not vitiate.” In State v. Calhoon, 18 N. C., 374 (indictment for murder), cited in the last case above as settling the law, RuffiN, O. J., *537says (DaNIei, and QastoN, JJ., concurring) : “It is the practice of the foreman to sign his name to the finding of the grand jury, and it seems to be a salutary practice, as it tends to the more complete identification of the instrument containing the accusation. We do not know in what it had its origin, but, though useful and proper, it does not seem to be essential, nor to have been at any time the course in England. 4 Bl. Comm., 306.” In State v. Collins, 14 N. C., 117, IIeN-deesoN, O. J., says: “I have been much at a loss to see the necessity of any indorsement. The grand jury come into court, and make their return, which the Court records, not from that memorandum made out of court, but they pronounce, or are presumed to pronounce, it in court. It is not the indorsement which is the record, but that which is recorded as the jurors’ response. The indorsement is a mere minute for making the record.” Though he adds, “But I believe the law is understood to be otherwise,” it is clear that this referred to an erroneous impression generally prevailing, and not as to the law which he had just decided, and which has been reiterated since in the long line of cases above cited. In Frisbie v. U. S., 157 U. S., 160, it is held that the omission of the indorsement “A true bill” is not “necessarily, and under all circumstances, fatal, although it is advisable that the instrument should be indorsed; * * * for such in-dorsement is a short, convenient, an'd certain method of informing the Court of their action.” To same purport, see Miller v. Com. (Va.), 21 S. E., 499, and many othetr cases. The common law is thus stated in 1 Chit. Or. Law, 322: “If the evidence does not support the charge, the grand jury say, Ignoramus/ or now, in English, ‘Not found,’ and, if they find a true bill, they say 'Billa vera/ or in the plural, if there- is more than one bill. This shows that the response •of the jury entered by the Clerk was the record.” There are *538States wbieb bave changed the common law by a statute which requires the indorsement by the grand jury of the words, “A true bill,” and in their courts alone are found the decisions which make the omission of those words fatal. Even there the statutory requirement has often been held merely directory. State v. Agnew, 52 Ark., 275; State v. Mertens, 14 Mo., 94; State v. Murphy, 47 Mo., 274. .But the above numerous and uniform decisions declare that at common law and in this State, the record by the Clerk that the bill has been returned by the grand jury as found is the only record, and that it is not material that there should be any indorsement whatever, or signing by the foreman, as that is a mere memorandum, and does not come up as any part of the record. If this Court were 'the Legislature, it could change the law, as the Legislatures of several States have done, by making the indorsement of the foreman a record md obligatory. In State v. Harris, 106 N. C., 689, it, is said: “To sustain obsolete technicalities in indictments will be to waste the time of the.courts, needlessly increase their expense to the public, multiply trials, and, in some instances, would permit defendants to evade punishment who could not escape upon a trial on the merits. If it has not this last-mentioned result, it is no advantage to defendants to resort to technicalities, and if it has such effect the courts should repress, as they do, a reliance upon them.” But to support the defendant’s objection to the indorsement of the indictment in this case is not to “sustain an obsolete technicality,”' but to create a new technicality, whose existence has heretofore been denied by our courts.
Furthermore, the objection comes too late. State v. Bordeaux, 93 N. C., 560; State v. Weaver, 104 N. C., 758. If, in fact, the bill was not returned a “true bill” by the grand jury, that was a matter which should have been raised below *539by a plea in abatement, and tbe fact found by the Judge. State v. Horton, 63 N. C., 595.
Unless the above uniform authorities are reversed, it appeal's to be well settled (1) that no indorsement by the grand jury is necessary, but if put there it does not vitiate the bill; (2) that to hold the indorsement, “This bill found” does not mean “A true bill,”, especially when the defendant pleads to it, and raises no objection till reaching this court, is a “refinement” forbidden by the statute; (3) that, the record citing that “the defendant was indicted on the following bill,” it must be taken as true. If any question is raised as to the fact (and it seems there is none), it should be raised by a plea in abatement below, upon affidavit, and not here for the first time, by a mere objection to the form of the indorsement by the grand jury.
MONTGOMERY, J., conours in the dissenting opinion.