People v. Silver

122 N.E. 115, 286 Ill. 496
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 20, 1919
DocketNo. 12510
StatusPublished

This text of 122 N.E. 115 (People v. Silver) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Silver, 122 N.E. 115, 286 Ill. 496 (Ill. 1919).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Dunn

delivered the opinion of the court:

Ben Silver was convicted in the county court of McHenry county on the last five counts of an information charging him in twenty counts with the sale of intoxicating liquor in anti-saloon territory and was sentenced to thirty days’ imprisonment and fined' $100 on each count. The judgment of imprisonment was not several, fixing a definite term of imprisonment on each count, in accordance with the decision in the case of People v. Elliott, 272 Ill. 592, but was in gross, and for this error the judgment was reversed by the Appellate Court for the Second District and the cause was remanded for the entry of a proper judgment and sentence. The defendant has sued out a writ of error, to review the judgment of the Appellate Court.

Ben Silver was a junk dealer in the city of Harvard, in Chemung township, McHenry county, which is anti-saloon territory, where he has lived for sixteen years. He kept whisky and beer in his cellar in large quantities, in barrels, jugs and bottles. During 1917 he had several barrels of whisky and from eight to fifteen barrels of beer, each containing ten dozen pint bottles. Sam Kaplan, who was his cousin, had worked for him at times for four years and worked for him steadily in 1917 from February to November 20.' William Sampkis worked for Silver for a year and two months previous to the trial in December, 1917, and Stanley Schappel for about six weeks in the summer of. 1917. Kaplan testified that he saw Silver give Sampkis whisky to drink frequently at breakfast, dinner and supper and that Silver charged Sampkis for the liquor at twenty-five cents a drink, deducting the price from Sampkis’ pay every Saturday night when they figured up the amount; that Sampkis was drunk all the time, and that Silver had five barrels of whisky in the cellar while Kaplan worked there. Kaplan also testified that he saw Silver sell liquor to Schappel every day for five or six weeks, and that Silver kept Schappel’s account on a piece of paper, and Kaplan was present when they settled and heard Silver tell Schappel that he charged him twenty cents a drink. Kaplan also testified that Silver sold three bottles of beer for twenty-five cents, and that Kaplan saw him sell them both to Sampkis and Schappel. Schappel testified that while he was working for Silver he drank schnapps, for which Silver charged him twenty-five cents a drink and sixty-five cents, seventy-five cents or one dollar a bottle; that some call whisky schnapps, some call it whisky, some say booze; that he got whisky. Anna Schappel testified that she went to Silver and had a talk with him about her husband’s working for him and complained that he did not pay her husband as much wages as he promised to pay, and Silver said he could not pay her,—that her husband drank too much,—and Silver had everything on the book, and he charged for beer and whisky. She testified that her husband got whisky and beer, and Saturday nights he brought some home in a bottle,—sometimes a quart, sometimes a pint, sometimes a half-pint. Silver denied that he ever furnished either Schappel or Sampkis liquor that h¿ made any charge for. He testified that he had liquor on his table every meal and once in a while gave his help a glass of liquor, and that he never took anything from their pay for liquor or received any payment, directly or indirectly, for liquor furnished them; that the whisky and beer he had in his cellar he got to drink himself, and the reason he bought so large a quantity was because he read they were ' going to stop manufacturing it; that he had seen the men take a drink but he did not have to give it to them; that they helped themselves. He testified he ordered whisky and beer for Sampkis and a case and a keg of beer for Schappel. He made these orders for them when he was ordering for himself and they paid for what they ordered. Sampkis testified that he never bought or paid for any drinks of whisky or beer while he was working for Silver or saw Silver charge or get any pay from Schappel for any drinks; that he never got any.liquor from Silver or saw Schappel get a drink of beer or whisky in Silver’s house, and that he ordered beer himself with Silver. These were all the witnesses who testified in the case.

Schappel, just before his employment by Silver, had been living at Freeport, where his household goods had been seized upon an attachment. Kaplan was sent to Free-port by Silver to settle the attachment suit and bring Schappel to Harvard. He paid the debt for which the attachment was issued and shipped Schappel’s goods to Harvard, where Schappel and his family occupied a house the rent of which was paid by Silver, who also paid other bills for Schappel amounting altogether to about $130, and he was deducting $6 a week from Schappel’s wages of $18 a week to apply on Schappel’s debt. Schappel left Silver’s employment without notice and returned in the night time to Free-port. Kaplan left Silver’s employment after a quarrel with him, which he says grew out of a dispute over his wages, the amount in controversy being $4, and Silver says it grew out of Kaplan’s unpatriotic talk about the war. Sampkis corroborated Silver on this question.

The evidence for the prosecution was clearly sufficient to sustain the verdict. The extent to which the credibility of the witnesses was affected by their relation to the defendant, their contradiction by the defendant and Sampkis, the nature of the stories to which they testified, or other circumstances, it was the province of the jury to determine. It cannot be said that the jury acted unreasonably in accepting the testimony of the witnesses for the prosecution rather than those for the defendant or that there is clearly a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the defendant.

The court gave to the jury every instruction asked by either side,—fifteen for the People, twenty for the defendant. It is evident that no complicated legal question arose on which instruction was necessary, but each side, apparently fearing that the jurors might not be able to recognize a reasonable doubt if they should meet one in the consideration of the evidence, asked the court to give several instructions on that subject, and the court gave them all. It was not held in People v. Wallace, 279 Ill. 139, as counsel for the plaintiff in error insists, that the giving of five instructions defining “reasonable doubt” was such error as to require a reversal of the judgment. The judgment in that case was reversed because it was not sustained by the evidence. It was held that the evidence was not such as to remove all reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt, and that in that case the effect of the instructions brought together in the record on the question of reasonable doubt, warning the jury against being misled by undue sensibility into regarding as reasonable, doubts which were only chimerical or conjectural, and against going outside the evidence to hunt up doubts created by resorting to trivial and fanciful suppositions and remote conjectures, was to induce the jury to believe that in the mind of the court there was grave fear that the jury would think there was reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt when there was none. The practice of giving numerous instructions of the character indicated was condemned, but there was no attempt to lay down any general rule controlling the giving of such instructions and it would be difficult to do so. On this record, in view of the instructions asked and given on either side, the plaintiff in error has no cause to complain of those upon reasonable doubt.

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Related

People v. Elliott
272 Ill. 592 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1916)
People v. Wallace
116 N.E. 700 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1917)

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Bluebook (online)
122 N.E. 115, 286 Ill. 496, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-silver-ill-1919.