Heward v. State

Citations

• 21 Miss. 261

Syllabus

<p>An indictment for murder embraces within itself an indictment for manslaughter ; and the statute which declares that no person shall be prosecuted for any offence, other than murder, and certain other excepted ones, unless the indictment be found within one year after the offence has been committed, will apply to the case of a prisoner indicted for murder, but who has been guilty,of manslaughter only, precisely as though he had been indicted for the latter offence.</p> <p>A motion in arrest of judgment can only be sustained for matter apparent on the face of the record ; if, therefore, an indictment charge an offence to have been committed within the year previous to its finding, the judgment cannot be arrested because, in point of fact, it appeared in proof that it was not so committed.</p> <p>Where a prisoner was indicted for murder, it was held erroneous in the court below to refuse to instruct the jury that, if the offence did not amount to murder, but only to manslaughter, and were committed more than a year before the finding of the indictment, they must acquit the defendant.</p> <p>It seems that it is incumbent on the state, if a prosecution be not begun within the year, in order to sustain the prosecution, to show that the prisoner either fled or absconded in order to avoid the prosecution ; in either of which cases the limitation does not, as stipulated in the proviso to the act, apply.</p>