Samuel Freeman Miller

“ No anthority has been cited to us in the American courts which sustains the right of a court to amend any part of the body of an indictment without reassembling the grand jury, unless by virtue of a statute. ”

“ It is of no avail, under such circumstances, to say that the court still has jurisdiction of the person and of the crime, for, though it has possession of the person, and would have jurisdiction of the crime, if it were properly presented by indictment, the jurisdiction of the offense is gone, and the court has no right to proceed any further in the progress of the case for want of an indictment. ”

“ People, 110 U.S. 516, 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 111, was a writ of error to the supreme court of that state by a party who had been convicted of the crime of murder in the state court upon an information instead of an indictment. The writ of error from this court was founded on the proposition that the provision of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, that no state shall 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,' required an indictment as necessary to due process of law. ”

“ While it may seem to the court, with its better instructed mind in regard to what the statute requires to be found as to the intent to deceive, that it was neither necessary nor reasonable that the grand jury should attach importance to the fact that it was the comptroller who was to be deceived, yet it is not impossible nor very improbable that the grand jury looked mainly to that officer as the party whom the prisoner intended to deceive by a report which was made upon his requisition and returned directly to him. ”

“ Indictments are found upon the oaths of a jury, and ought only to be amended by themselves; but informations are as declarations in the king's suit. An officer of the crown has the right of framing them originally ”

“ This is an application to this court for a writ of habeas corpus to relieve the petitioner, George M. Bain, Jr., from the custody of Thomas W. Scott, United States marshal for the Eastern district of Virginia. The original petition set out with particularity proceedings in the circuit court of the United States for that district, in which the petitioner was convicted, under section 5209 of the Revised Statutes, of having made a false report or statement as cashier of the Exchange National Bank of Norfolk, Virginia. ”

“ Mahar, 16 Pick. 120, the court having held, upon the arraignment of the defendant, that the indictment was defective, the attorney general moved to amend it, and the prisoner's counsel consented that the name of William Hayden, as the owner of the house in which the offense had been committed, should be inserted, not intending, however, to admit that Hayden was in fact the owner. ”

“ Section 5209 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, under which this indictment is found, reads as follows: 'Every president, director, cashier, teller, clerk, or agent of any association, who embezzles, abstracts, or willfully misapplies any of the moneys, funds, or credits of the association; or who, without authority from the directors, issues or puts in circulation any of the notes of the association ”