Ex-parte Hays

Citations

• 25 Fla. 279

Syllabus

<p>1. A proceeding in bastardy is a special proceeding, and must be conducted with, substantial strictness, as the statute directs, and if the complaint or affidavit before a magistrate on which it is founded, does not contain averments essential to constitute bastardy, neither the magistrate, nor the Circuit Court to which he sends it, acquires jurisdiction to hear the case.</p> <p>2. A complaint by a woman that she is single, and that on a certain day she was delivered of a child, of which a named person is the father, is defective in not stating that the child would “ by law be deemed and held a bastard,” or statingthe equivalentthereof, this being an essential ingredient of the offence.</p> <p>3. A person condemned to custody in a bastardy proceeding in which, owing to the absence of necessary averments, the court has not acquired jurisdiction, will be discharged on habeas corpus.</p>