Underhill v. State

Deen, Judge.

One of the duties of superior court clerks is to maintain a "docket of criminal cases, to be known as the dead docket, to which cases shall be transferred at the discretion of the presiding judge, and which shall only be called at his pleasure.” Code § 24-2714 (7). We agree with the appellant that the court’s discretion may not be used in an unlawful manner, for instance, to keep an indictment hanging over the head of the defendant merely to toll the running of the statute of limitations. Such a situation could be analogized to the former suspended sentence law, where, as was held…