Lewis v. State

Citations

• 55 Fla. 54

Syllabus

<p>i. A count in an indictment for embezzlement found under Section 3311 of the General Statutes of 1906, which describes the property alleged to have been embezzled by the accused as “fifty dollars, good and lawful money, currency of the United States of America, a better description of said money being to the grand jurors unknown; that the said money was then and there the property of” a certain designated person “and was of the value of fifty dollars,” sufficiently describes the property to withstand an attack made by amotion to quash upon that ground.</p> <p>2. A count in an indictment for embezzlement found under Section 33x1 of the General Statutes of 1906 which charges that the property alleged to have been embezzled had come into the custody and control of the accused 1 ‘by reason and by virtue of his being the agent and servant of” a certain designated person is not open to attack by a motion to quash because it fails to “allege in what capacity the defendant was acting as agent and servant in this connection.” Such statute prescribes the same penalty for the offense of embezzlement when committed by an agent as when committed by a servant of another, and because an indictment in a single count describes the offender as occupying both positions conjunctively that of agent and servant, at the time of the commission of the offense does not render it bad for uncertainty, for in such a casebutone offenceischargedandtheprosecutorisatlibertyto prove either or both of the capacities in which the defendant acted at the time of committing the offense, and if either or both of such capacities were proven, together with the other ingredients of the offense, the crime would be made out,</p> <p>3. It is the policy of this court, as it evidently was of the Legislature in enacting Sections 3961 and 3962 of the General Statutes of 1906, to uphold indictiryents and informations whenever there has been a substantial compliance with the: law therein.</p> <p>4. In an indictmen