State v. Clark

Citations

• 97 Miss. 806
• 52 So. 691

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal Law and Procedure. Mingling poison with food with intent to Jcill. Code 1906, § 1331. Indictment. Duplicity. Ownership of poison. Ownership of food or drink. Possession. Corpus delicti.</p> <p>Under Code 1906, § 1331, making it a felony to mingle poison with any food, drink or medicine, with intent to kill or injure any human being, an indictment charging the mingling of carbolic acid with whisky with intent to “kill and injure” a designated person:—</p> <p>(a) Is not demurrable as charging two distinct offenses; and</p> <p>J6) It need not charge ownership of the poison, or of the food, drink or medicine with which the poison was mingled; nor</p> <p>[(e) Need it charge that the food, drink or medicine mingled with the poison was in the possession of the person intended to be killed or injured; nor</p> <p>‘(d) That said person was about or intended to eat or drink the same, since</p> <p>(e) The corpus delicti consists of the mingling of the poison with the food, drink or medicine.</p> <p>2. Same. Statutory crime. Indictment. Pleading. (</p> <p>.Where a statute makes it a crime to do one thing or another, and a person by one act does both of them, he violates the statute but onc'e; and an indictment thereunder may in a single count charge the defendant with doing both, employing the conjunction “and” where the statute has “or,” and it Will not be double, and will be established at the trial by a proof of either.</p>