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19 Ill. 74

Davis v. People

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided November 15, 1857

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1857-11-15

This was an indictment, found by the grand jury, at the May term, 1857, of the Circuit Court of Hardin county, charging Robert Davis, the plaintiff in error, with the murder of Seth Taylor. The indictment alleges, in substance, that Robert Davis, on the fifth day of September, in the year 1856, struck Seth Taylor upon his head, with a large stick, thereby inflicting upon said Taylor a mortal wound, of which said mortal wound the said Seth Taylor died.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1857-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently March 1978 · most notably State v. Greer (1883), Sanitary District v. Cullerton (1893)

25 state decisions — followed in 10 states

401857186018701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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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Breese, J.

¶1This judgment must be reversed, because the evidence does not show that the person struck and killed was Seth Taylor, as alleged in the indictment. In no part of the evidence, which is spread upon the record, is he thus indicated. He is referred to by all the witnesses as “ Taylor,” — whether the Seth Taylor named in the indictment, or not, the court may presume, but cannot say with certainty. It is not so proved.

¶2It is essential, in all criminal prosecutions, that the name of the party injured, or, as in this case, killed, should be proved as laid. There is no conflict of authority on this point.

¶3Had the objection been made in the court where the trial was had, a new trial would have been allowed and the error there corrected. It is made for the first time in this court.

¶4The challenges to certain jurors for cause were properly disallowed. It is manifest, from the manner in which Turner was examined, that the counsel were disposed rather to subject him to ridicule than to have the true state of his own convictions brought out.

¶5As to the other juror — Miller—his being over sixty years of age was not a disqualification ; it was but an exemption — and the defendant voluntarily chose him as a juror, knowing the facts.

¶6The instructions given by the court, considered in reference to the proof offered, and taken together, are not objectionable. The officer having charge of the jury, permitting any member of them to drink spirituous liquors, was certainly very culpable, and would have been properly punished by the court, but it is not such conduct as would vitiate a verdict. For the error above noticed, however, the judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded, and a venire de novo awarded.

¶7Judgment reversed.

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