JOSEPH Y. BESTMAN, Appellant, v. REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE SECOND JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, GRAND BASSA COUNTY. Argued April 2, 1959. Decided April 24, 1959. Where a notice of appeal was issued by a person other than the ministerial officer of the court from which the appeal was taken, and is directed to a person other than the appellee, the appeal will be dismissed. On appeal from a judgment of conviction upon a verdict of guilty of attempted murder, appeal dismissed. A. G. Richardson for appellant. Assistant Attorney General J. Dossen Richards for appellee. MR. JUSTICE MITCHELL delivered the opinion of the Court.* Reference to the records, reveals that the grand jury attending at the May, 1958, term of the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit, Grand Bassa County, indicted Joseph Y. Bestman for the crime of attempting to commit murder. The said defendant was arraigned at the aforesaid term of court, pleaded “not guilty,” was tried, convicted by a verdict of the petty jury on June 4, 1958, and sentenced to six months imprisonment at hard labor. He filed a motion for new trial, based exclusively on the groUnd that the verdict was manifestly against the law controlling in the premises and the evidence adduced at the trial. This motion was heard and denied by the trial Judge; and to this, and other rulings of the court, the said defendant noted exceptions and has brought his case on appeal upon a bill of exceptions containing the following three counts: Mr. Justice Pierre was absent because of illness and took no part in this case. LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS ” 361 i. That the Republic of Liberia did not establish a prima facie case against the defendant, that is to say, the indictment charges the defendant with having committed the alleged crime with and by means of tricks, subtlety, artifice and chicanery, and no evidence was heard at the trial ; nor can an attempt to commit a felony be committed by tricks, subtlety, artifice and chicanery; yet Your Honor sustained and upheld the verdict of the petty jury; and thus Your Honor erred in rendering final judgment based upon said verdict on June 12, 1958, after denying defendant’s motion for a new trial, to which the defendant then and there excepted. “2. And also because defendant says Your Honor also erred in rendering final judgment based upon the illegal verdict aforesaid, in that, although the witnesses for. both plaintiff and defendant clearly established and proved at the trial the crime of infraction of the peace for firing a gun in the public highway, yet Your Honor on June 12, 1958, denied defendant’s motion for new trial and rendered final judgment against defendant, sentencing him to six months imprisonment for an offense that was not proven against him, to which defendant then and there excepted. “3. And also because defendant says Your Honor erred when Your Honor overruled the several objections raised by defendant’s counsel at the trial, contrary to law, as well as other objections raised during the entire trial of the case, to which defendant then and there excepted.” Those were the five points on which this case has reached us on appeal, and we would be very anxious to have the benefit of exploring those grounds from the records transmitted to us, but for the one reason that has barred us in so many other instances. To say the least, 362 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS it is commonplace with matters on appeal emanating from the Second Judicial Circuit to disregard the mandatory statutes in such cases made and provided ; and necessarily, such blunders are incurable. Although, we regret this situation, this Court is powerless to reach the stage of probing into the merits of the appeal. When the case was called for hearing, appellee filed a motion to dismiss the appeal for the following reasons : It . Because the paper served on appellee is not the legal notice of the completion of the appeal as contemplated and required by statutes, in that the said notice is not directed to the ministerial officer, nor does it notify the appellee as to the term of court to which the appeal is taken, and does not contain the necessary clause commanding the ministerial officer to summon appellee to appear and defend as the law directs. ” z. The so-called notice is further defective because it is not issued and signed by the clerk, who is the proper officer to perform the said duty, but by one P. H. Doe Sherman, of counsel for the appellant, as the records in the case show.” Appellant’s counsel countered this motion to dismiss by the following resistance : Because appellant says and maintains that the issues of law raised and contained in Counts ‘I,’ `z’ and ‘3’ of the motion do not fall within the grounds for which an appeal may be dismissed as laid in the codified laws of this Republic. 1956 Code, tit. 8, � 380. An appeal may not be dismissed on any other ground, except as otherwise expressly provided by law. “2. And also because appellant says and submits that, although he acknowledges the fact that there are apparent defects in the notice of appeal served, as pointed out by the appellee’s counsel, yet these defects do not furnish grounds for the dismissal of LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 363 appellant’s appeal. Appellant maintains further that, though the notice of appeal was signed by his counsel in the court below, yet it was served by the bailiff of the court, and return thereto made, which service the appellee acknowledged. “3. And also because appellant says that, according to the several rulings of this Honorable Court, it is the service and return of the notice of appeal that confers jurisdiction upon the appellate court, and not otherwise.” On recourse to the purported notice of the completion of appeal, it is apparent that the same was issued by one P. H. Doe Sherman, of counsel for the appellant, and addressed to Sadie A. C. Cummings, clerk of the Second Judicial Circuit, Grand Bassa County, and filed in the clerk’s office, on June 24, 1958, which is in absolute disregard of the specific language of the statutes in this respect. Appellant’s counsel, in his argument, claimed that he had conformed to the requirements of the statutes, and yet, on the other hand, he admitted simultaneously that the issuance of notice by appellant’s counsel in the lower court was a defect, but argued that it was no ground for the dismissal of the appeal. Let us now examine and see how strongly the argument would stand in the light of the law controlling: “The clerk of the court from which the appeal is taken shall issue a notice to the appellee, upon perfection of the appeal, informing him that the appeal is taken and to what term of court, and directing the appellee to appear and defend the same. The appeal is thereupon complete.” 1956 Code, fit. 8, � 375. In the instant case, the notice was neither issued by the clerk, nor was it directed to the appellee. It is obvious therefore that the statutes in this respect are not complied with. This Court has made it an emphatic rule that, where 364 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS notice of completion of appeal is not issued and served as the law prescribes, the appeal must fail if the issue is rightly raised. The motion to dismiss is thus sound in law; and, since we have no alternative but to grant the same, the appeal is hereby dismissed. And it is so ordered. Appeal dismissed.