People v. Moore

57 N.E.2d 511, 324 Ill. App. 109, 1944 Ill. App. LEXIS 1001
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided October 26, 1944·No. Gen. No. 9,440·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Dadt

delivered the opinion of the court.

An information consisting of one count w.as filed in the county court of Clark county by the state’s attorney, which charged the defendant, Harry Moore, with the crime of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to do a bodily injury.

A jury returned the following verdict: “We, the jury, find the defendant guilty as charged.”.

The trial court entered judgment on the verdict and sentenced the defendant to pay a fine of $500 and to six months’ confinement at the Illinois State Farm at Vandalia.

The defendant has sued out a writ of error to review such judgment.

The information charged that the defendant “did wilfully and unlawfully assault Pvt. Arthur Washburn with a deadly weapon, to-wit, with the tines of a pitchfork, with intent to inflict upon said Washburn a bodily injury where no considerable provocation appeared and where the circumstances of the assault showed an abandoned and malignant heart, contrary to the statute” etc.

The first contention of the defendant is that inasmuch as the information contained no allegation that Washburn was ever touched with the tines of the fork, the result is that a simple assault is charged, and the jury should have found of what offense the plaintiff in error was guilty.

The information was in the language of paragraph 60 of the Criminal Code (ch. 38, Ill. Rev. Stat. [Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 37.039]) and in our opinion sufficiently charged the crime defined in such paragraph of the statute. (See People v. Cohen, 303 Ill. 523; People v. Gawlick, 350 Ill. 359.)

To constitute the major or greater offense defined in such statute, it was not necessary to charge a battery,— that is to say, it was not necessary that the information should charge that the victim Washburn was touched with the tines of the fork. (Young v. People, 6 Ill. App. 434; Allen v. People, 82 Ill. 610.)

It is our opinion that the verdict of “guilty as charged” was a sufficient finding containing all of the essential elements of the major crime charged. (See Armstrong v. People, 37 Ill. 459; People v. Lemen, 231 Ill. 193.)

The only other contention of the defendant is that the jury and not the court should have fixed the punishment.

Paragraph 60 of the Criminal Code, under which defendant was convicted, provides that, “An assault with a deadly weapon . . . shall subject the offender to a fine ... or imprisonment in the county jail . . . , or both, in the discretion of the court.” (The emphasis is ours.) Such paragraph was enacted in 1874.

In 1917 the legislature passed an Act entitled: “An Act to revise the law in relation to the sentence and commitment of persons convicted of crime or offenses and providing for a system of parole and to repeal certain Acts and parts of Acts therein named. ’ ’ Such Act was approved June 25, 1917. (See Session Laws of 1917, p. 353 [Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 38, par. 801 et seq.; Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 37.759 et seq.].)

Such Act of 1917 has been amended from time to time. Such Act as originally passed, and as so amended, provided the method of fixing the punishment for certain criminal offenses, but prior to the enactment of the Act of 1943, referred to in the next paragraph of this opinion the Act of 1917, as originally passed and as amended from time to time, did not in any manner provide for the fixing of the punishment in cases where the penalty prescribed by statute was confinement in the county jail, or fine, or both.

In 1943 the legislature passed an act entitled “An Act to amend Section 6a of Division XIV of ‘An Act to revise the law in relation to criminal jurisprudence,’ approved March 27, 1874, as amended.” (See par. 754a, ch. 38, Ill. Rev. Stat. [Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 37.742 (1) ]; see also p. 586 of vol. 1 of the 1943 Session Laws.)

Such Act of 1943, so far as is material, provides that:

Sec. 6a. “The provisions of ‘An Act to revise the law in relation to the fixing of the punishment and the sentence and commitment of persons convicted of crime or offenses, and providing for a system of parole’, approved June 25,1917, as amended, shall apply to all crimes or offenses herein enumerated to which said Act may be applicable. In all convictions for such crimes or offenses, the fixing of the punishment and the sentence and method of imposition thereof, shall be as therein provided.

For all crimes or offenses to which the act cited in the preceding paragraph may not be applicable, the following procedure shall apply:

(a) . . .

(b) ... In all cases where the penalty as prescribed by statute is confinement in the county jail, or fine, or both, if the jury finds the accused guilty, it shall also fix the time of confinement, or fine, or both, as the case in its judgment requires. (The emphasis is ours.)

(c) When the accused pleads guilty, and in all other cases not otherwise provided for, the court shall fix the time of confinement, or the amount of the fine, or both, as the case may require.”

The question we are now required to pass on is,— is such emphasized part of such paragraph “b” of said sec. 6a applicable to and does it control the procedure when a defendant is now found guilty of an assault with a deadly weapon as defined in snch paragraph 60 of the Criminal Code, or do the words, “In the discretion of the court, ’ ’ found in such paragraph 60, require that where a defendant is found guilty under such paragraph 60 the judge, and not the jury, shall fix the punishment of the defendant, if the defendant is found guilty?

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People v. Moore, 57 N.E.2d 511, 324 Ill. App. 109, 1944 Ill. App. LEXIS 1001 (Ill. Ct. App. 1944).

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