offense was committed before the finding of the indictment, and before the statute of limitations was allowed to operate. In other words, this will be sufficient showing, unless time is an indispensable ingredient of the offense. United States v. Winslow,

3 Sawy. 337; Roberts v. State, 19 Ala. 526; Irvin v. State, 13 Mo. 306; People v. Lafuente, 6 Cal. 202; State v. Hanson, 39 Me. 337; State v. Beaton, 79 Me. 314; Lucas v. State, 27 Tex. App. 322; Chandler v. State, 25 Fla. 728; Arcia v. State, 28 Tex. App. 198; Archb. Crim. Pr. & Pl. p. 275; Whart. Crim. L. § 261.

The term employed in designating time, is "on or about,” and this is deemed a sufficient particularization; at least it is not so indefinite as to vitiate the indictment. State v. Harp, 31 Kan. 498; State v. Barnett, 3 Kan. 250; State v. Tuller, 34 Conn. 294; People v. Littlefield, 5 Cal. 355; People v. Kelly, 6 Cal. 210; Farrell v. State, 45 Ind. 371; Hampton v. State, 8 Ind. 336; State v. Elliot, 34 Tex. 148; Cokely v. State, 4 Iowa, 479; Rawson v. State, 19 Conn. 295.

The only object of alleging time, unless it enters into the nature of the offense, is to show that the prosecution is not barred by the statute of limitations, and that the offense was committed within the political subdivision of the state over which the court has criminal jurisdiction. These principles are elementary and statutory, and need no citation of authorities. State v. Adams, 20 Or. 525.

Modern criminal law has utterly abandoned the old theories regarding evidence of the time and place at which an offense was committed. The obvious hardship of requiring the prosecution to prove with absolute accuracy, the hour and minute at which an offense was done, doubtless contributed to this reform. Evidence is conclusive that a hideous crime has been committed. Evidence is equally conclusive as to the perpetrators of this dastardly act. The instrumentalities by which it was accomplished are also shown. Premeditation and fiendish malice are established-every accessory that can deprive the act of palliation or excuse is shown to exist; and yet the inability of the commonwealth to show the exact time of the occurrence, must operate to free the guilty parties. This standing reproach upon the administration of justice happily no longer exists; and the precise time at which the crime was committed need not be stated in the indictment; but it may be alleged to have been committed at any time before the finding,

except where the time is a material ingredient in the charge. N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. § 280.

So long as the facts and incidents precluded all doubts respecting the identity of the transaction, and so long as it was manifest that the act was recent enough to be subject to prosecution, and that a preliminary examination in regard to it had been had, time is not an ingredient of the offense in any such sense as to make it necessary to charge it according to the truth. The information or indictment may state one time and the proof show a different one without involving an objectionable variance. Turner v. People, 33 Mich. 378.

It is a rule that time and place, when and where the crime was committed, must be stated with certainty in the indictment, but it is not necessary to prove them on the trial as stated, unless they are necessary ingredients in the offense. People v. Stocking, 32 How. Pr. 48.

Place is immaterial, unless where it is matter of local description, such as the parish, etc., where the house or building is described to be in an indictment for burglary, or for breaking and entering a house, shop, warehouse, or a building within the curtilege, etc., in which cases the local description must be proved as laid. Upon an indictment for treason or conspiracy, if you prove one good overt act in the county where the venue is laid, you may prove the others to have taken place in any other part of the country. And upon an indictment against an accessory before or after the fact, he may be indicted, in any place and before any court where his principal may be tried, no matter where the offense of the accessory was committed. 1 Archb. Crim. Pr. & Pl. p. 119.

§ 255. Quashing Indictment Founded on Illegal Evidence Given before the Grand Jury.-An indictment will be quashed, if it plainly appears to the court to have been found upon wholly incompetent or insufficient evidence; but if the jury acted upon legal testimony reaching the whole case, the court will not weigh its sufficiency.

The jealousy with which the early law guarded the secrets of the grand jury room, has largely disappeared. The sacramental character of that august body is very imperfectly recognized at the present day. The theory that the proceedings before this body are beyond the scrutiny or condemnation of court or coun

sel, is a foolish pretense that is very generally abandoned. Malice, corruption and ignorance frequently combine to impress upon the proceedings of this body, the tyrannical and oppressive functions of the Star Chamber and the Council of Ten. And to say or even intimate that where corrupt practices exist, there is no method open for their proper disclosure is simply to insist that our criminal law is crippled with a hideous deformity.

In Burdick v. Hunt, 43 Ind. 381, it is said there is no sufficient reason why the prosecuting attorney may not be called upon in a court of justice to disclose any evidence given or proceedings had before a grand jury. And the following authorities are to the effect that generally the evidence of grand jurors is competent whenever it is necessary to ascertain who was the prosecutor (Sikes v. Dunbar, 2 Wheat. Sel. N. P. 1091; Huidekoper v. Cotton, 3 Watts, 56) or what was the issue and what the testimony of the witnesses before a grand jury in a given case. Thomas v. Com. 2 Rob. (Va.) 795; State v. Offutt, 4 Blackf. 355; State v. Fassett, 16 Conn. 457; Com. v. Hill, 11 Cush. 137; State v. Broughton, 29 N. C. 96, 45 Am. Dec. 507; Way v. Butterworth, 106 Mass. 75; Burdick v. Hunt, supra.

The rule which may be adduced from the authorities, and which seems most consistent with the policy of the law, is that whenever it becomes essential to ascertain what has transpired before a grand jury it may be shown, no matter by whom; and the only limitation is that it may not be shown how the individual jurors voted or what they said during their investigations (People v. Shattuck, 6 Abb. N. C. 34; Com. v. Mead, 12 Gray, 167, 71 Am. Dec. 741) because this cannot serve any of the purposes of justice.

In State v. Froiseth, 16 Minn. 298, it was conceded by the attorney general, and the court concurred, that where the grand jury required an accused person to be brought before them and testify touching the accusation the indictment should be set aside, although in that case the indictment was not found solely upon the testimony of the accused. In People v. Briggs, 60 How. Pr.17, the court, Osborn, J., held that an indictment should be quashed where the defendant's wife was called as a witness against him by the grand jury, for the reason that this was a substantial error, and it was doubtful whether the grand jury would have found an indictment without the wife's testimony. United States v. Farrington, 5 Fed. Rep. 343, 2 Crim. L. Mag. 525.

The proceedings of grand juries cannot ordinarily be disclosed, but this rule is not to be carried to the extent of obstructing justice or of creating wrong and hardship. A court may inquire into the evidence upon which a grand jury found an indictment, and if such evidence is plainly illegal and incompetent should quash the indictment. People v. Restenblatt, 1 Abb. Pr. 268; United States v. Farrington, supra. But see contra, State v. Fowler, 52 Iowa, 103, 2 Crim. L. Mag. 45.

As the grand jury is an informing and accused body, which makes its investigations and holds its deliberations in secret, and is irresponsible for its official action upon matters of fact, except before the tribunal of public opinion, it is very important that its powers duties and methods of procedure should be well understood, and be strictly confined within the conservative and salutary limits imposed by law, which experience has shown to be necessary to subserve the public good, and to accomplish a just and impartial administration of the criminal law.

Mr. Justice Field, in an able and well considered charge of a grand jury in California (5 Am. L. J. 259), very clearly defined his views as to the powers and duties of grand juries in the Federal courts. He said, in substance, that their investigations are limited to such offenses as are called to their attention by the court, or submitted to their consideration by the district attorney; or such as may come to their knowledge in the course of their investigations of matter brought before them, or from their own observations, or such as may be disclosed by members of the body. With the above exceptions he was opinion that all criminal prosecutions should be commenced by preliminary examinations before a magistrate, where a person accused of crime may meet his accuser face to face, and have an opportunity for defense, as this method of procedure affords the citizen the greatest security against false accusations from any quarter. He also, in strong terms, directed the grand jurors not to allow private prosecutors to intrude themselves into the grand jury room and present accusations. On this subject he dwelt at some length and referred to high authority, urging the importance of securing grand juries against outside influences and improper interferences, which, if allowed, "would introduce a flood of evils, disastrous to the purity of the administration of criminal justice, and subversive of all public confidence in the action of these bodies." In this connec

tion he quoted the Act of Congress entitled "An Act to Prevent and Punish the Obstruction of the Administration of Justice in the Courts of the United States." Rev. Stat. §§ 5404, 5405.

Investigations before grand juries must be made in accordance with the well established rules of evidence, and they must have the best legal proof of which the case admits. In this respect they are judicial tribunals. The prosecuting officer is presumed to be familiar with the rules of evidence, and it is his duty to take care that no evidence is received by the grand jury which would not be admissible in a court upon the trial of a cause. 1 Whart. Crim. L. § 493.

As to how far grand jurors may be allowed or compelled to testify as to proceedings before their body, is a question upon which there is some diversity of decisions in the courts. By the policy of the law grand juries act in secret, and, with the view of sustaining that policy, it is prescribed that a grand juror shall, among other things, swear that "the state's counsel, your fellows, and your own, you shall keep secret." The principal ground of that policy is to inspire the jurors with a confidence of security in the discharge of their responsible duties; and secrecy as to the actions and the opinions of jurors upon matters before them must ever remain inviolable.

It follows from the foregoing review that an indictment should be quashed when it appears by affidavit that it was found by the grand jury without adequate evidence to sustain it. People v. Restenblatt, 1 Abb. Pr. 268; People v. Hyler, 2 Park. Crim. Rep. 570. If any illegal evidence has been introduced before the grand jury which bears in the smallest degree upon the final result of the deliberations, it cannot properly be disregarded, and the indictment should be set aside. Worrall v. Parmelee, 1 N. Y. 519, 49 Am. Dec. 350; Anderson v. Rome, W. & O. R. Co. 54 N. Y. 334; Baird v. Gillett, 47 N. Y. 186. Since the decision of the case of the People v. Briggs, 60 How. Pr. 17, deciding the incompetency of the wife as a voluntary witness against the husband (per Judge Osborn), the same question has been decided the same way in the case of Byrd v. State, 57 Miss. 243, 34 Am. Rep. 440, reported since Judge Osborn's decision. See also People v. Crandon, 17 Hun, 490, which holds directly that the wife is not a competent witness in a criminal action against her husband. Any defect which, in any stage of a crim