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11 Ill. 121

Barrows v. People

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided December 15, 1849

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1849-12-15

An indictment for larceny was found against Barrows at the March term, 1849, of the Madison Circuit Court. Barrows pleaded not guilty, and entered his motion for a change of venue; having given the prosecuting attorney written notice of his intention to make such motion. Notice of the application was given the day prior to the making of the motion, and the day on which the petition was verified.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1849-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently August 1899

4 state decisions

20184918501860187018801890decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Opinion by Treat, C. J.:

¶1The Court should have granted the motion for a change of venue. The prisoner swore that information of the facts, which were made the basis of the application, came to his knowledge on the day the petition was prepared, and the notice was given to the state’s attorney that the motion would be made. It is equivalent to a statement that he then received the information for the first time. It negates every inference that the information had been previously acquired. If he had before obtained knowledge of the existence of the facts, the information did not come to his knowledge on that day. We do not entertain a doubt but that perjury might be assigned on the petition, and the guilt of the prisoner established, by proving that he had knowledge of the facts prior to the day on which the petition was verified.

¶2The prisoner having shown a clear right to a change of venue, which the Court denied him, the subsequent proceedings in the case were erroneous, and must be reversed. On the authority-of the case of Baxter vs. The People, 2 Gilman, 578, the cause will be remanded to the Madison Circuit Court, where the prisoner must appear and answer to the indictment; and where he may insist on or withdraw the application for a change of venue, as he shall deem proper. Judgment reversed.

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