Indictable offence

“ In all cases of felonies at common law, and some, also, by statute, the felonious intent is deemed an essential ingredient in constituting the offence; and hence the indictment will be defective, even after verdict, unless the intent is averred. ”

“ You see they strike every man in a peculiar way. No two minds are exactly alike. No pair of eyes distinguish exactly the same object or the same peculiarities of the objects. This is an indictment under section 5440 of the Revised Statutes, and there must not only be a conspiracy to defraud, but there must be an overt act done in pursuance of that conspiracy for the purpose of effecting the object of it. Now, then, how must these overt acts be stated in this indictment? Is the overt act a part of the crime, and must it, be described with the same particularity that you describe the offence? ”

“ Offences created by statute, as well as offences at common law, must be accurately and clearly described in an indictment, and if they cannot be, in any case, without an allegation that the accused is not within an exception contained in the statute defining the offence, it is clear that no indictment founded upon the statute can be a good one which does not contain such an allegation, as it is universally true that no indictment is sufficient if it does not accurately and clearly allege all the ingredients of which the offence is composed. ”

“ A fatal variance. See record, page 1305. That is the end of that. The indictment is for something. You have got to follow it, and it certainly is not as hard work to write an offence against a man as it is to prove it. If they cannot write an offence, you certainly ought not to find the man guilty. Besides all that, that oath was not even impeached, it was not ever attacked. There was not a word said upon the subject except in the indictment. It was charged to be false, and not one word of evidence was offered to this jury to show that it was false. ”

“ Authorities are not necessary to prove that an indictment upon a statute must state all such facts and circumstances as constitute the statute offence, so as to bring the party indicted precisely within the provisions of the statute defining the offence. ”

“ In an indictment upon a statute, it is not sufficient to set forth the offence in the words of the statute, unless those words of themselves fully, directly, and expressly, without any uncertainty or ambiguity, set forth all the elements necessary to constitute the offence intended to be punished ”

“ It imputes no guilt to any particulars of the equipment, but to the act combined with the illegal intent.
In general, it may be said, that it is sufficient certainty in in an indictment to allege the offence in the very terms of the statute. We say, in general, for there are doubtless cases where more particularity is required, either from the obvious intention of the legislature, or from the application of known principles of law. At the common law, in certain descriptions of offences, and especially of capital offences, great nicety and particularity are often necessary. ”

“ The statute upon which the indictment in question is founded describes the several acts which make up the offence; and then declares the person to be guilty of felony, punishable by fine and imprisonment. The transmission or presentation of any deed, or other writing, to any office or officer of the government, in support of, or in relation to, any account or claim, with the intent to defraud the United States, knowing the same to be false, are the only essential ingredients. The felonious intent is no part of the description; as the offence is complete without it. ”

“ It is a well-established principle of Criminal Law, that where a man is indicted for an offence and acquitted, he cannot afterwards be again indicted for the same offence, if he might have been convicted at the onset by proof of the facts contained in the second indictment. ”

“ Nor is the trial or conviction of an actor indispensable to furnish a right to try the person who aids or abets the act; each in the eye of the law is deemed guilty a principal. In the present indictment, the offence is in the third and fourth counts laid by aiding and abetting, in the very terms of the act of Congress. ”

“ It is essential to a valid indictment that it should set forth the offence, with such particulars of time, place, and person, that the accused may know the nature of the charge, and be able to prepare to meet it. ”

“ Of the offence of incitement, Tuckey LJ said:
‘The actus reus of the offence is the indictment (sic) by the defendant of another to do something which is a criminal offence. He must do so with the intention that if the other person does as he asks he will commit a criminal offence. That is the mens rea. ”

“ Having come to these conclusions, it is not necessary to examine the fourth section of the Enforcement Act, for the reason that it is obvious, without much examination, that no one of the counts of the indictment is sufficient to warrant the conviction and sentence of the defendants for the offence defined in that section. ”

“ Com. 167; and an indictment will lie even though there be 336another remedy or punishment by act of parliament, as for keeping swine in London, 2 Will. and Ma. Sess. 3372, c. 8, § 20; Regina v. Wigg; 2 Salk. 460; Ld. Raym. 1163. But it is otherwise of an offence created 338by statute, then the remedy must be in the form prescribed by the statute.
339Though indictment is a suit of the crown, and a general pardon will excuse the fine inflicted on conviction for a nuisance, it will not prevent the abatement of it. ”

“ There is not that technical nicety required as to form, which seems to have been adopted and sanctioned by long practice, in cases of felony, and with respect to some crimes, where particular words must be used, and no other words, however synonymous they may seem, can be substituted. But in all cases, the offence must be set forth with clearness, and all necessary certainty, to apprise the accused of the crime with which he stands charged. And we think the present indictment contains such certainty, and sufficiently alleges, that the offence had, in point of fact, been committed by Straughan. ”

“ Doubt cannot be entertained that each of the twelve counts of the indictment is well drawn, and that they embody an offence which is legally defined in the aforesaid act of Congress. By the record it also appears that a jury was duly impanelled on the fifteenth of October in the same year, for the trial of the defendant upon that indictment, and that the jury, on the twenty-second of the same month, returned their verdict that the defendant is guilty, and that the value of the said mail-bags is less than twenty-five dollars. ”

“ If accused can admit all accusations of indictment and still be innocent, indictment is defective. Every indictment must be complete within itself, and charge a crime and every substantial element of the offense alleged to be committed. ”

“ Inferior degrees of the same offence of false imprisonment are also punishable by indictment (like assaults and batteries) and the delinquent may be fined and imprisoned [50] . And indeed [51] there can be no doubt, but that all kinds of crimes of a public nature, all disturbances of the peace, all oppressions, and other misdemesnors whatsoever, of a notoriously evil example, may be indicted at the suit of the king. ”

“ By far the most effective and dangerous "trick" employed by guilty defendants is the deliberate shouldering of the entire blame by one of two persons who are indicted together for a single offence. A common example of this is where two men are caught at the same time bearing away between them the spoil of their crime and are jointly indicted for "criminally receiving stolen property." ”

“ All the other objections are appropriate to a demurrer or a motion to quash or in arrest of judgment. They are attacks upon the indictment as a criminal pleading, the right to make which counsel expressly renounce. If well founded, they show that the indictment is bad. But the Constitution does not require, as an indispensable prerequisite to interstate extradition, that there should be a good indictment, or even an indictment of any kind. It requires nothing more than a charge of crime. ”

“ The public is reminded that an indictment contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. ”

“ Is he to be sentenced for an offense distinct from the one for which he has been tried upon an indictment? We apprehend not; but the only question is whether he is such a person as ought to have been sentenced, on his last conviction, to additional punishment, if the fact of a former conviction had then been known to the court. There was no need of a presentment by a grand jury, for no offense was to be inquired into. That had been already done. An indictment is confined to the question whether an offense has been committed. ”

“ There are, indeed, many authorities to the effect that an indictment which, in seeking to inform the accused of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, charges the offense in the disjunctive instead of the conjunctive, is bad, upon the theory that it charges no offense at all. ”

“ If a criminal intent is necessary to the crime, it must be charged in the indictment.' It is undoubted that the first ground of the demurrer filed to the indictment was broad enough to embrace this contention if it had been urged. ”

“ It is hard to see how the fact, if admitted, that in a certain locality all persons indicted for crimes of offenses of a certain class are acquitted, has any tendency to prove that every person, or any particular person, there indicted for such a crime or offense, is guilty. ”

“ The necessity for identifying references in the indictment to the obscene matter upon which the grand jury makes its finding is an essential part of the rule dispensing with the obligation of stating the obscene matter, in so many words, in the indictment. The reason upon which the English rule rests is that spreading in full the obscene matter is essential to protect the accused in his rights, to enable him to move to quash, or in arrest of judgment, or to present on review by error the validity or invalidity of the indictment. ”

“ But, if a person arrested to await the finding of an indictment may remove the case before an indictment is found, the accusation is not framed and presented by the officers and the grand jury of the state whose criminal law has been violated, but by the officers and grand jury of another government, and the circuit court of the United States has not only to try the defendant, but also to charge its own grand jury as to the accusation against him on behalf of the state ”

“ Frequently considerable time is necessarily consumed in obtaining such evidence of violation of the law as will warrant the institution of proceedings in the courts, and in such cases, among the obstacles to success in seeming the punishment of offenders is the shortness of the period during which, under the statute of limitation, an indictment must be found. ”

“ It is true that, in order to a conviction for a minor offense, it must be an ingredient of the major and substantially included in the offense charged in the indictment, but it is clearly a matter for the state courts to determine whether in a given case an indictment is sufficient in that regard. ”

“ Upon these grounds it is insisted that the indictment charges no offense against the United States under § 5451.
1. The extent to which a commissioner in extradition may inquire into the validity of an indictment put in evidence before him, as proof of probable cause of guilt, has never been definitely settled, although we have had frequent occasion to hold generally that technical objections should not be considered, and that the legal sufficiency of the indictment is only to be determined by the court in which it is found. ”

“ That each of the offenses charged, alleged, and set forth in the indictment constitute a single continuous act inspired by the same intent, which is equally essential to each of the offenses charged in the three counts of said indictment, and the court erred and exceeded its jurisdiction in imposing a sentence of 15 years upon defendant. ”

“ To seek demonstration of such an absurdity, in defiance of our whole conception of impersonality in the criminal law, would be an exercise in self-stultification. The indorsement of an indictment, the theory under which the prosecutor is operating, his belief or error as to the statute which supports an indictment or under which sentences may be imposed, are all wholly immaterial. ”

“ One of the grounds for arrest of judgment was that the indictment does not state an offense under the laws of the United States. This point does not seem to be pressed in the brief of counsel. It is without merit. ”

“ The allegations of fraud in conduct and motive not being supported by any averment of facts from which such fraud is necessarily inferable, the other allegations as to the transactions charged are, upon a reasonable construction, consistent with the innocence of the defendant. And indictments, in my opinion, ought not to be viewed with favor, which, by the very multitude of their counts, serve to embarrass and confuse the accused. If an offense cannot be stated in less than 100 counts of an indictment, I do not think that public justice will suffer if the indictment be dismissed. ”

“ It has frequently happened that indictments have been made in which some one count has not been well taken. But an indictment of which not even a single count proves to come within the contemplation of the law,—such an indictment deserves a special, and in every sense of the word a peculiar, place on honor in the temple of jurisprudence. ”