Ward v. State
Headnotes
Summary
Syllabus and headnotes are prepared by the reporter or publisher, not the court, and are not part of the opinion.
Opinion of the Court
Text extracted by OCR from a scanned original; check the original for exact wording.
Battle, J. The grand jury of White County indicted B. H. Ward for carnally knowing and unlawfully abusing Eva Wood-son, a female under the age of sixteen years. He was convicted and his punishment assessed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for the period of one year.
The record in this court shows that the State failed to prove the county in which the offense was committed. This is a jurisdictional fact, and must be proved by the State. It is necessary to prove it in order to convict the defendant of a criminal offense. Sullivant v. State, 8 Ark. 400 ; Holeman v. State, 13 Ark. 105 ; Reed v. State, 16 Ark. 499 ; McQuistian v. State, 25 Ark. 435 ; Frazier v. State, 56 Ark. 242 ; Jones v. State, 58 Ark. 390 ; 22 Enc. Pleading & Practice, 827, and cases cited.
In his argument before the jury the prosecuting attorney said, “You will have to brand the prosecuting witness, Eva Wood-son, as an infamous liar and a perjurer before you can acquit the defendant.” This remark was highly improper.
• For failure to prove the venue, the judgment is reversed, and the cause is remanded for a new trial. Riddick, J., dissents.
How later courts describe this case
Explanatory parentheticals written by citing courts — 1 in all; the most informative distinct ones are shown.
-
(the venue of a criminal case is jurisdictional, and must be proven by the state)
Cited by 4 cases
View all citing references →Relies on it most ⓘ
Most recent
Citing references are not a citator: they show that a later opinion cites this case, not whether it followed, distinguished, or overruled it. Check negative history before relying on this case.