holding court may only exercise jurisdiction of justiciable matter through filing of pleadings sufficient to invoke power of the court to act
How later courts described this case
- holding court may only exercise jurisdiction of justiciable matter through filing of pleadings sufficient to invoke power of the court to act
- state’s failure to endorse information and thereby to verify arresting officer’s signature as required by statute deprived court of subject matter jurisdiction
- “one is not an ‘accused’ until an information or indictment is filed, or where the person is in actual custody or has been arrested in the course of prosecution of the offense in question.”
- when required under Oklahoma law, verification of charging document is jurisdictional prerequisite
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
PARKS, Presiding Judge,
specially concurring:
Because “it appears that the [appellant] is guilty of an offense although defectively charged in the indictment,” I am constrained by the mandates of 22 O.S.1981, § 1067 to “direct the prisoner to be returned and delivered over to the jailer of [Tulsa] county, there to abide the order of the court in which he was convicted.”
As the majority states, failure to verify the signature of the arresting officer on the Uniform Violations Complaint precluded the district court from being vested with subject matter jurisdiction and from being empowered to act. Therefore, all proceedings in the trial court are rendered void. This writer neither condones nor tolerates such waste of judicial resources and feels that if prosecutors continually fail to subscribe, endorse and verify informations, such conduct will amount to prosecutorial misconduct and, 22 O.S.1981, § 1067 notwithstanding, will be grounds for dismissal of the action.