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People v. Warren

5 Hill & Den. 440 Court N.Y. Sup. Ct. English

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p. 440
The People vs. Warren.

Headnote

A ministerial officer is protected in the execution of process regular and legal on. its face, though he has knowledge of facts rendering it void for want of jurisdiction
Certiorari to the Oneida general sessions, where the defendant was convicted of an assault and battery upon one Johnson, a constable. Johnson arrested the defendant on a warrant issued by the inspectors of election of the city of Utica for interrupting the proceedings at the election by disorderly conduct in the presence of the inspectors. (1 R. S. 137, § 37.) The warrant was regular and sufficient upon its face. The defendant resisted the officer, and for that assault he was indicted. The defendant offered to prove that he had not been in the presence or hearing of th'e inspectors at any time during the election, and that Johnson knew it. The court excluded the evidence, and the defendant was convicted. He now moved for a new trial on á bill of exceptions.
W. Hunt, for the defendant,
said the evidence should have been admitted It would have shown that the inspectors had no jurisdiction of the subject matter; and if the officer knew it, his process was no justification of the arrest. (Parker v. Walrod, 16 Wend. 514 .) But,

Although the inspectors had no jurisdiction of the subject matter, yet as the warrant was regular upon its face, it was a sufficient authority for Johnson to make the arrest, and the defendant had no right to resist the officer. The knowledge of the officer that the inspectors had no jurisdiction is not important. He must be governed and is protected by the process, and cannot be affected by any thing which he has1 heard or learned out of it. Thete are some dicta the othef way; but we have held on several occasions that the officer is

p. 441
protected by process regular and legal upon its face, whatever he may have heard going to impeach it.[1]

And without hearing T. Jenkins, (district attorney,) who was to have argued for the people,

New trial denied.

(a) (a) See Webber and Hand v. Gay, ( 24 Wend, 485 ;) also Watson v. Watson, ( 9 Conn. Rep. 140 .)

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