Court Opinion

ID: 9807974
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:23:02.102394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:06:19.681811
License: Public Domain

SMITH, C. J.,
(dissenting) I find myself unable to agree with the other members of the court in the construction they put upon those provisions of The Code which confer and limit the criminal jurisdiction of justices of the peace. (Sections 892 and 987). .. ,
There are four specified forms of assault, dependent upon the character of the instrument or. the intent with which *623it is made, or the consequent injury to the party assailed, which, as demanding perhaps a severer punishment than he can inflict, the statute commits to the exclusive cognizance of a higher tribunal. If the assault be with intent to kill, or commit rape, which if perpetrated is a capital felony ; or with a deadly weapon, which endangers life; Or if attended with “ serious damage,” the justice cannot try the offender. The association of thé other assaults with one, the grade of which is determined by its actual results, seem to me to indicate that the “serious damage” was intended to take in those unemimerated cases where some permanent injury is inflicted,'approaching in criminal turpitude the other assaults mentioned, and not to embrace transient injury or pain.
Without extenuating the conduct of the accused in any respect, we must put an interpretation upon this enactment of universal application in its terms, which is in consonance with the manifest general purpose ascertained by its surroundings.
It is of course difficult to define the line that separates damages which are not, from those which are serious, so as to give the precise import of the words, but I think clearly the severity of the present assault does not bring it within the meaning of the enactment.'
Pee, Cueiam. Reversed.