Phillips v. State

Citations

• 29 Tex. 226

Syllabus

<p>Art. 399 a of the Criminal Code reads as follows: “If any person shall wrongfully destroy, mutilate, deface, injure, or remove any tomb, monument, gravestone, or other structure, in any place used or intended for the burial of the dead, or any fence, railing, or curb for the protection of such structure, or any inclosure for any such place of burial, or shall wrongfully injure, cut, remove, or destroy any tree or shrub growing within any such inclosure, he shall be punished by imprisonment in jail not exceeding six months, or by fine not exceeding $500.” (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 2031.) The indictment charged the defendant with removing and destroying the fence, &c. This is always proper where a statute makes two or more distinct acts, connected with the same transaction, indictable, each one of which may. be considered as representing a stage in the same offense.</p> <p>There is no repugnancy between the act of removing and that of destroying a graveyard. The former includes the latter.</p> <p>The Code of Criminal Procedure does not contemplate that a general demurrer to an indictment, or a general exception, which does not notify the court whether the defect of the indictment is one of form or one of substance, shall be heard by the court. (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 2949, Note 733.)</p> <p>If the offense be charged substantially in the language of the statute, so as to put the defendant upon notice of the particular charge which he is called on to answer, and he could plead his acquittal or conviction against another indictment, it is sufficient.</p> <p>Where a man does an act with the intent which the law forbids, it will not avail him that he also intended an ultimate good. It is enough that every one must know what the law forbids.</p> <p>That the burying-ground was better protected by the new fence than the old is no defense.</p>