Smith v. State

Citations

• 72 Fla. 449
• 73 So. 354

Syllabus

<p>1. It is the declared policy of the Legislature, as well as of this court, to uphold indictments and informations whenever there has been a substantial compliance therein with the statutory requirements.</p> <p>2. Defects in indictments and informations should be called to the attention of the trial court by a motion to quash or a demurrer, so that the defects, if any, may be corrected by the filing of another indictment or information. Neither the common law nor our statutes fav'or the policy of the defendant in waiting until the last stage of the cause and attacking such defects by a motion in arrest of judgment, the granting of which would have the effect of unraveling the whole proceedings.</p> <p>3-While the sufficiency of the allegations in an indictment to charge the offense may be tested by a motion in arrest of judgment, yet upon this motion the indictment should receive a liberal construction, and even an informal or imperfect allegation of an essential fact will be deemed a sufficient averment of that fact. A defective allegation not affecting the real merits, or a merely formal or clerical error, or an allegation of unnecessary matter not concerning the substance of the charge, would not be ground for arresting the judgment.</p> <p>4 Where an indictment does not wholly fail to allege a crime or an essential element of a crime, and sufficiently states the nature and cause of the accusation against the defendant, and is not so vague, indistinct, and indefinite as to mislead the accused and embarrass him in the preparation of his defense, or expose him after conviction or acquittal to substantial danger of a new prosecution for the same offense, such indictment will not on a motion in arrest of judgment after verdict be held legally insufficient to sustain a conviction.</p> <p>5. An indictment that alleges that “Ruth Smith, late of the County of Duval and State of Florida, on the 21st day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and