People v. Sowrd

14 N.E.2d 957, 295 Ill. App. 314, 1938 Ill. App. LEXIS 458
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMay 3, 1938
DocketGen. No. 39,831
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 14 N.E.2d 957 (People v. Sowrd) 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. Sowrd, 14 N.E.2d 957, 295 Ill. App. 314, 1938 Ill. App. LEXIS 458 (Ill. Ct. App. 1938).

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Friend

delivered the opinion of the court.

Rose Sowrd, defendant, was tried in the municipal court on an information charging her with unlawfully possessing a hahit forming drug, to wit, marijuana, in violation of par. 158, ch. 91, Ill. State Bar Stats. 1935 [Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 88.23(2)]. Defendant interposed a plea of not guilty, waived trial by jury and pursuant to a hearing by the court January 19, 1937, was found guilty and sentenced to the house of correction for one year and fined $1,000 and costs. January 20, 1937, pursuant to notice served on the State’s attorney, defendant filed a petition in the municipal court seeking to vacate the judgment and sentence. The petition was set for hearing January 27,1937, and on that date the State’s attorney made a motion to dismiss the petition as defective. After several continuanees, the court, on March 2, 1937, overruled defendant’s motion to vacate the judgment. This writ of error is prosecuted to reverse the order thus entered.

The information upon which defendant was tried charged that on to wit, the 18th day of January, 1937, in the city of Chicago, county of Cook and State of Illinois, Rose Sowrd, then and there, not being an apothecary, physician or dentist, unlawfully, had in her possession and under her control a certain habit forming drug, to wit, marijuana, without first having a written prescription therefor, in violation of par. 158, ch. 91, Ill. State Bar Stats. 1935 [Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 88.23(2)], contrary to the statute'and against the peace and dignity of the people of the State. The evidence adduced upon the hearing disclosed that the officers who arrested her found a quantity of tobacco or weed, commonly known as marijuana, in her possession in the residence occupied by her.

It is first urged as ground for reversal that the information fails to charge any crime under the laws of the State of Illinois. It is argued that the law of 1931 was repealed in 1935, and that the legislature revised the entire law relating to habit forming drugs by enacting the statute entitled “An Act Defining and Relating to Narcotic Drugs and to Make Uniform the Law with Reference Thereto,” and in so doing, by implication, omitted marijuana from the text of the statute. "While it is true that the Mexican word “marijuana” is left out of the 1935 statute, the subject is covered in the definition given of “Cannabis,” at par. 157, sec. 1 [Ill. State Bar Stats. 1935, ch. 91; Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 88.23(1)] under definitions, subsec. 13, as follows:

“ ‘Cannabis’ includes the following substances under whatever names they may be designated: (a) The dried flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant Cannabis Sativa L., from which the resin has not been extracted, (b) the resin extracted from such tops, and (c) every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such resin, or of such tops from which the resin has not been extracted.” Prior to the enactment of the 1935 law, the statute, under “Definitions,” subsec. 12, included and defined “marijuana” as follows [Cahill’s Ill. St. 1933, ch. 91, ¶ 135, § 2]:
“ ' Cannabis Indica,’ ‘marijuana,’ ‘loco weed’ or ‘Cannabis sativa’ includes any compound, manufacture, salt, derivative or preparation thereof and any synthetic substitute of any of them identical in chemical composition.
“ ‘Habit forming drugs’ means cocoa leaves, opium, cannabis indica, cannabis sativa, marijuana, or loco weed. ’ ’ It therefore seems clear that although marijuana is not mentioned under that name in the 1935 statute, it is clearly included in the section hereinbefore quoted, under the provision that “ ‘cannabis’ includes the following substances under whatever names they may be designated:”

It is further urged that, “the municipal court had no jurisdiction to sentence the defendant to the House of Correction, because the punishment provided by law is a sentence and commitment to the State Reformatory for Women, and the judgment is void.” It was stipulated by the parties that defendant is a female person over the age of 21. Section 5, as amended, of “An Act to establish and provide for a State Reformatory for Women,” approved June 30, 1927 (ch. 23, par. 251, sec. 5, Ill. Rev. Stat. 1937 [Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 118.09]), provides “ . . . Any woman of the age of eighteen years or over, convicted of a violation of any law, whose sentence or commitment is for one year or longer shall ... be committed by the court in which the conviction is had to the State Reformatory for Women,” Under this provision of the statute the court should have sentenced defendant to the State Reformatory for Women instead of to the House of Correction, but that does not render the judgment void; the cause may be remanded with directions for the entrv of a proper judgment. (People v. Boer, 262 Ill. 152.)

Defendant takes the further position, however, that the judgment is void because the State Reformatory for Women, at Dwight, Illinois, is a penitentiary, and the municipal court of Chicago has no jurisdiction to try upon information a female person charged with a criminal offense where the punishment fixed by law is for a term of imprisonment for one year or longer. It is argued that under sec. 8, art. 2 of the constitution an indictment was indispensable, and therefore a trial and conviction based upon an information is void. This same contention was made in the case of People v. Hazard, 356 Ill. 448, where counsel representing the defendant in this proceeding filed a petition on behalf of the defendant in that case for a writ of habeas corpus, to bring about the discharge of the relator who was a prisoner in the State Reformatory for Women at Dwight. She had been convicted in the municipal court on an information based on sec. 51a-l of an act to revise the law in relation to criminal jurisprudence, approved March 27, 1874, as amended July 13, 1921, charging her with the crime of unlawful solicitation in a certain street in the city of Chicago. She was sentenced to the State Reformatory for Women, at Dwight, Illinois, pursuant to sec. 5, ch. 23, par. 251, Ill. Rev. Stat. 1937 [Jones Ill. Stats. Ann. 118.09], as hereinbefore set forth. Counsel there argued that her conviction in the municipal court based upon an information was void, because an indictment was indispensable within the meaning of sec. 8, art. 2 of the constitution, which provides that no person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense unless upon an indictment of a grand jury, except in cases in which the punishment is by fine and imprisonment otherwise than in the penitentiary. It was held, however, that the municipal court had power to sentence the relator to more than six months imprisonment, and was required under sec. 5 of the foregoing act, if the sentence was for six months or more, to commit her to the Illinois State Reformatory for Women, and “that it was proper to use an information since the offense was a misdemeanor.” The opinion in People v. Hazard, supra, was filed in June, 1934. Since then, sec. 5 of the statute has been amended to read “one year” instead of “six months,” and the commitment in the instant case is to be determined by the statute, as amended.

It is urged by defendant’s counsel in their brief and also on oral argument that the decision in People v.

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394 N.E.2d 90 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1979)

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Bluebook (online)
14 N.E.2d 957, 295 Ill. App. 314, 1938 Ill. App. LEXIS 458, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-sowrd-illappct-1938.