People v. Powers

200 Ill. App. 536, 1916 Ill. App. LEXIS 128
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedAugust 10, 1916
DocketGen. No. 6,227
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 200 Ill. App. 536 (People v. Powers) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Powers, 200 Ill. App. 536, 1916 Ill. App. LEXIS 128 (Ill. Ct. App. 1916).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Dibell

delivered the opinion of the court.

George P. Powers was convicted under the first count of an information charging him with the sale of intoxicating liquor in violation of the anti-saloon territory act (J. & A. 4637 et seq.), and under the eighth count charging him with being a keeper of a place which was a nuisance under the same act. He was sentenced to imprisonment and a fine under each count and there was a judgment for the abatement of the alleged nuisance. He has sued out this writ of error to review said judgment.

In this court the State’s Attorney entered a motion to strike the bill of exceptions from the record, and accompanied said motion by a supplemental record, duly certified, showing the order for the adjournment of the term at which said conviction was had in the court below. We took that motion with the case. Defendant in error filed affidavits setting up his version of the facts in the court below concerning the presentation and signing of said bill of exceptions. The State’s Attorney moved to strike said affidavits from the files and we took that motion with the case. The State’s Attorney then filed counter-affidavits tending to show an entirely different state of facts concerning the presentation and signing of said bill of éxceptions in the court below. We have, therefore, to determine: (1) Whether the affidavits shall or shall not be considered here; and (2) whether the bill of exceptions shall be stricken from the files.

By many decisions it has been settled that in a reviewing tribunal in this State the record of the court below imports verity and cannot be contradicted by affidavits, nor can any deficiency therein be supplied by affidavits filed in such reviewing court. If the record filed is incorrect, or omits necessary matter supposed to have occurred in the court below, the record can only be corrected by an application to the court below in term time, and the court below has jurisdiction to hear and determine the matter at a later term, if there exists anything in the record to amend by. These rules are stated and applied Wilder v. House, 40 Ill. 92; People v. Jameson, 40 Ill. 93; Herrington v. McCollum, 73 Ill. 476; Roche v. Beldam, 119 Ill. 320; Wisconsin Cent. R. Co. v. Wieczorek, 151 Ill. 579; West Chicago St. R. Co. v. Morrison, Adams & Allen Co., 160 Ill. 288. The reason for these rules is thus stated in Wisconsin Cent. R. Co. v. Wieczorek, supra: “The judgment of courts of review must always he formed upon the record, and from that alone. If they should assume to cure mistakes or omissions of the parties or counsel in the court below, by supplying matters omitted, inadvertently or otherwise, from the record, they might in like manner change the record in other respects, to the detriment of parties litigant. To do so would introduce the greatest uncertainty and confusion, be the exercise of a power with which they are not vested, and destroy the security and certainty which should inhere in judicial proceedings. ’ ’ It follows that the affidavits filed by the plaintiff in error, and also those filed by the State’s Attorney must be stricken from the files. But this does not include the supplemental record filed by the State’s Attorney, which we permit to stand.

The record is certified to contain all the orders of record in the court below in the cause in question, and the supplemental record shows when the term ended. It therefore appears from the record that the judgment in this cause was entered on December 6, 1915; that no application for leave to present a bill of exceptions or to fix a time within which a bill of exceptions might be presented was ever made to the court in this cause; that the term adjourned on December 7, 1915, and that the bill of exceptions was approved by the State’s Attorney under date of December 9th, and was signed by the judge under date of December 9th, and was filed by the clerk on December 9, 1915; and the statute shows that the next term of said County Court began on the second Monday of December, 1915, which was December 13th. This bill of exceptions was therefore signed and filed in vacation. It is well settled that a bill of exceptions may be presented to the trial judge at any time during the term at which the judgment was rendered without any previous order permitting the same to be so presented or filed; but if it is not presented during the term and no order is granted fixing the time for its presentation beyond the term, the right to present a bill of • exceptions expires with the term, and if not presented within the term the judge may not thereafter receive and sign any bill of exceptions except by consent of the parties, and the order of the court, by such consent, in term time extending the time. In Underwood v. Hossack, 40 Ill. 98, it was held that where a trial judge had signed a bill of exceptions, the court of review would presume that he would not have done so unless it had been presented to him in proper time, and that the mere fact that it was not filed in proper time does not rebut that presumption. This was again held in Goodrich, v. Cook, 81 Ill. 41, and in Village of Hyde Park v. Dunham, 85 Ill. 569. Underwood v. Hossack, supra, is cited with approval in Magill v. Brown, 98 Ill. 235; Hawes v. People, 129 Ill. 123; and in Olds v. North Chicago St. R. Co., 165 Ill. 472, where the language of Underwood v. Hossack is quoted as follows: “The judge having signed the bill of exceptions, we will presume that he would not have done so, unless it had been presented to him in proper time.” That case is also cited in Conductors’ Mut. Aid & Benefit Ass’n v. Leonard, 166 Ill. 154; Pieser v. Minkota Milling Co., 222 Ill. 139; T. E. Hill Co. v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 250 Ill. 243; and People v. Rosenwald, 266 Ill. 548; though in some of these cases Underwood v. Hossack, supra, was treated as if it had affirmatively appeared that the bill of exceptions was presented to the judge in time. The Appellate Courts of this State have followed Underwood v. Hossack in holding to the presumption that the bill of exceptions was presented in apt time because the trial judge signed it. The fourth district held this in Morrison v. People, 52 Ill. App. 482; the first district in Banker v. Miller, 148 Ill. App. 182; and Mangold v. King, 184 Ill. App. 50; and this court in Yunker v. Marshall, 65 Ill. App. 667. We have not found any case where the principle announced in Underwood v. Hossack, supra, has been overruled. We therefore consider it decisive in this case, and we therefore presume that this bill of exceptions was presented to the trial judge before the end of the judgment term, from the fact that he afterwards signed it, there being in the record nothing to show when it was presented to the trial judge, and he not having followed the common and approved practice of indorsing upon the bill the fact and date of its presentation to him for signature. The motion to strike the bill of exceptions from the files is therefore denied.

The proofs for the People showed that the place of business here involved, No. 423 South State street in the City of Belvidere, was formerly owned and operated as a saloon by Powers, and had a sign in front with the name of Powers upon it; that that locality became anti-saloon territory on May 7, 1914, and so remained up to the time of the filing of the information in this cause, which'seems to have been October 27 or 28, 1915.

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200 Ill. App. 536, 1916 Ill. App. LEXIS 128, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-powers-illappct-1916.