State v. Hutchinson

HENRIOD, Justice.

These are consolidated appeals from second degree perjury convictions. Reversed.

Defendants were accused of first degree perjury but were convicted of second degree perjury on the theory the latter was included in the former. Defense counsel point to State v. Spencer, 1941, 101 Utah 274, 117 P.2d 455, 457, where the accused was charged with perjury specifying no degree, and urge that it is authority precluding such inclusion. The state counters with the contention that the language relied on was obiter. Here it is:

“There are two crimes: ‘perjury in the first degree’ and…