Talk:Caldwell v. State of Texas (137 U.S. 692)

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Edition:	Caldwell v. State of Texas, upon the following indictment found by the grand jury of Fort Bend county, Tex: 'In the name and by the authority f t he state of Texas The grand jurors, good and lawful men of the state of Texas, county of Fort Bend, duly tried on oath by the judge of the district court of said county touching their legal qualifications as grand jurors, elected, impaneled, sworn, and charged to inquire into and true presentments make of all offenses against the penal laws of said state committed within the body of the county aforesaid, upon their oaths present in the district court of said county that William Caldwell, late of the county of Fort Bend, laborer, on or about the first day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight, with force of arms, in the said county of Fort Bend and state of Texas, did then and there, unlawfully and with express malice aforethought, kill one J M Shamblin, by shooting him with a gun, contrary to the form of the statutes in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state' The venue was subsequently changed to Harris county, Tex, and on trial of the case, upon Caldwell's plea of not guilty, before a jury duly impaneled, a verdict was found against him of guilty of murder in the flrst degree, and awarding the punishment of death A motion for a new trial was made and overruled, and judgment entered on the verdict, from which an appeal was taken to the court of appeals of the state of Texas, which affirmed the judgment, the opinion being delivered by WILLSON, J, (Caldwell v State, 28 Tex App 566, 14 S W Rep 122) Application for a rehearing was subsequently made, upon the ground that 'the indictment is fatally and fundamentally defective and void under the constitution of the state, and does not, either in form or substance, set out a valid charge of murder or any other offense known to the criminal law of the state, and is not due process of law under the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States' This motion was heard on oral and printed arguments on both sides, and overruled The opinion was delivered by HURT, J, (28 Tex App 576, 14 S W Rep 124,) and stated that but one ground was urged for rehearing, namely, the sufficiency of the indictment, the objections to which were that it failed to charge that the accused murdered the deceased; that it omitted to charge the time and place of the alleged shooting; and the infliction of a mortal wound; and the date of the wounding and that of the death; and that the shooting was done unlawfully and with malice aforethought; and was fatally defective for want of certainty The court held that as the indictment charged that Caldwell on the 1st day of August, A D 1888, in the county of Fort Bend, unlawfully, and with express malice aforethought, killed Shamblin by shooting him with a gun, it charged all of the acts constituting murder, and with the requisite particularity, and that consequently the indictment was sufficient; and said: 'Now, we have held that the legislature of this state has no authority to prescribe a form of indictment, and make the same sufficient, which fails to contain all of the elements of the crime But we have never held that the legislature could not prescribe a form for indictment which would not be good if the facts constituting the crime sought to be charged are contained in the form If the offense is sufficiently particularized to come within the rule of pleading, we would hold that such form would not be obnoxious to constitutional objections, either federal or state' A writ of error was sued out from this court, and allowed by the presiding judge of the court of appeals of Texas, and the case comes on upon a motion to dismiss .
Source:	Caldwell v. State of Texas from http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/137
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