Page:Dakota Territory Reports Vol 4.djvu/428

 thing from the record of the judgment itself, to reverse, in effect, the whole determination of the action; others seek, by similar methods, to merely enlarge or diminish the effect of the decision at first rendered.

There must always be a time when litigation is at an end, and when the successful litigant can pause and feel that his judgment is final: and no better time, it is believed could have been named by the able jurists of the past, than the term at which such final judgment is rendered. By a strict adherence to such a rule, courts and suitors are not affected by changing circumstances and shifting events, which otherwise might often bring about the reconsideration of final judgments in actions honestly and correctly determined. Our own supreme court has laid down the correct rule in Roberts v. Haggert, 29 N. W. Rep. 656, (determined at the February term, 1886) in which case the supreme court denied a reargument upon motion made after lapse of a term at which the action was finally determined. But that class of cases is to be distinguished from the one at bar. Here no attempt is made to amend, modify, or in any manner change, the judgment rendered. It is only sought to build up and strengthen the foundation upon which the determination of the court rests, and not in any manner to weaken or strengthen the determination itself.

The corrections made are purely clerical; the acts themselves were all done; the proceedings were all had; the steps affecting the defendant's rights were all taken; but the record thereof—the purely clerical part—was not done. The judge himself could not do this. It was no part of his business to reduce to writing the various acts done by himself, and those by him directed to be done. The rights of the prisoner were all saved and protected when the court had done all those things which the statute required to be done in the trial and determination of his case. The record of the proceedings is not necessary to the trial of an action. It is only necessary to a review of the case, and as an evidence in the future of what did in fact occur. There is no statute which requires that this record shall