Court Opinion

ID: 9865356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:32:53.19178+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:38:34.583952
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Bouck,
dissenting.
I cannot concur in the opinion herein calling for a reversal and a new trial. I think the judgment should be affirmed.
The defendant, plaintiff in error here, was convicted by a jury which brought in a verdict of “guilty of assault and battery.”
The information on file charges that the defendant “with a deadly weapon, to-wit, brass knucks, which he * * * then and there had and held, then and there unlawfully, wilfully and maliciously did make an assault on one Harry G-. Thomas, with intent to commit a bodily injury upon the person of * * * Thomas, no considerable provocation then and there [appearing for such assault, and the circumstances thereof then and there]1 showing an abandoned and malignant heart in * * * Lane, and at said time and place did beat, strike, wound, and bruise the body of * * * Thomas, contrary,” etc. (Italics are mine.)
This obviously was intended to, and did, charge an assault with intent to commit bodily injury under ’35 C. S. A., c. 48, §67, a “high misdemeanor” which carries *91a penalty of not more than one year’s imprisonment in the county jail and a fine not exceeding $2,000.
The defendant complains that a copy of the information served upon him is not a correct copy of the original, that the discrepancy was not discovered by him and his counsel until the trial was well under way, and that he was prejudiced thereby.
In the record filed in this court we find a copy alleged to be the one given to Lane. It is exactly like the original above quoted except that the italicized portion in the latter is omitted from the copy. In other words, this alleged copy does not contain the language charging an assault and battery.
The record of the district court recites that the information was read to the defendant, and that he then pleaded not guilty. The defendant, in connection with his motion in the court below to correct the record, there introduced evidence to the effect that the district attorney began to read, that counsel then declared the defendant waived the reading of the information, and entered the not guilty plea. The trial court considered the evidence pro and eon, and ruled against the defendant. This would seem to be binding upon our court as a decision of disputed fact by the trial court on conflicting evidence.
However,’ whether the copy was or was not defective as claimed, and whether or not the information was read to the defendant, I think the defendant could not possibly have suffered any prejudice. He does not disclose or hint how he could have been injured. Nothing more than a misdemeanor was involved in the case at any time. Service of a copy of the information in a misdemeanor case is not required until a request is made by the defendant. ’35 G. S. A., c. 48, §452.
Assault is defined in ’35 C. S. A., c. 48, §66, and assault and battery is defined in §68 thereof. The penalty for the one and the penalty for the other are exactly the same, namely, imprisonment in the county jail for not *92more than six months or a fine not exceeding $100. Id. §68. It is admitted that under either the original information as filed or under the wording employed in the incomplete copy the jury could find the defendant guilty of assault. Our attention is not called to any error in the admission of evidence. In a trial on an assault charge, evidence is of course admissible as to a resultant beating. Even assuming, but not deciding, that it was irregular to charge an assault and battery in an information intended to charge an assault with intent to do bodily injury, and that the information could cover only such aggravated assault and a simple assault, but not assault and battery, I submit that, since an assault is invariably included within an assault and battery, and since the penalty for each is exactly the same in Colorado, the words “and battery” should be considered as harmless surplusage.
Neither the instructions given nor any instructions tendered by the defendant and refused by the trial court have been brought up by the defendant. The instructions given to the jury may have submitted the question of defendant’s guilt or innocence of assault and battery. If so, and if the defendant did not object, he certainly could not now, under the facts and under the law of assault and of assault and battery in this state, charge error thereon. The instructions not being before us, and there being* no evidence whatever of prejudice, this court should conclusively presume that no prejudicial error has been committed. The evidence is amply sufficient to have supported a charge of assault and battery, and therefore is amply sufficient to support the included charge of assault. To nullify the trial and conviction under the circumstances here appearing is equivalent to indulging in an unauthorized presumption against the regularity and validity of the trial court’s proceedings. This court cannot lawfully relieve a plaintiff in error of his burden of affirmatively showing both error and prejudice. The defendant here has shown neither.
*93So far as one can judge by any record that comes to an appellate court, the defendant here has had a fair and impartial trial. I regret that, in a day when the legal profession at large, as well as courts throughout the land, are striving' to eliminate technicalities from crim-' inal prosecution, this court appears to stand for the older and less satisfactory system.
The judgment should be affirmed.
For the reasons stated, I respectfully dissent.
Mr. Justice Knous concurs in this opinion.

 The words in brackets appear in the original information, but were inadvertently omitted from the copy in the record herein. See the Attorney General’s “petition to amend the transcript of the record,” filed in this court March 4, 1938, and consented to by defendant.