Commonwealth v. Shields

Citations

• 50 Pa. Super. 194
• 1912 Pa. Super. LEXIS 28

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Sheriff—Permitting prisoners to escape — Acfs of April 14,1906, P. L. 169, and March SI, 1860, sec. 5, P. L. 882.</p> <p>1. The Act of March 31, 1860, sec. 5, P. L. 382, which declares that if any sheriff or keeper of any jail “having any offender convicted or accused of any crime in his lawful custody for such a crime shall voluntarily permit or suffer such offender to escape and go at large,” the officer so offending shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, applies to a sheriff who permits persons in his custody to escape who were summarily convicted before a justice of the peace of trespassing on posted land in violation of the Act of April 14, 1905, P. L. 169, and who were fined $5.00, and in default of payment committed to the county jail. The word “crime” in the act of 1860, covers offenses for which justices of the peace may summarily convict.</p> <p>2. The triviality of the offenses for which such prisoners have been convicted, is not to be taken as the measure of the offense of the officer in permitting them to go at large.</p> <p>3. The rule of strict construction of a statute in favor of a person accused of offending against it, is not violated by giving the words of the statute a reasonable meaning according to the sense in which they were intended, even though in a different connection a more restricted meaning would be ascribed to them.</p> <p>4. A crime is an act committed or omitted in violation of a public law either forbidding or commanding it, and in a comprehensive sense it includes minor offenses.</p> <p>5. Where an indictment charges the sheriff with permitting the escape of a person “convicted of the offense of willful trespass” before a justice of the peace, and committed to the county jail for a period of five days, the word “offense” will be construed to mean the word “crime” inasmuch as the context shows that the word was used in such sense in the indictment.</p> <p>6. While such an indictment may be defective in not setting out