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65 Ill. App. 492

Crane v. People

Appellate Court of Illinois

Decided June 1, 1896

Appellate Court of Illinois · decided 1896-06-01

<p>1. Indictment—Living in an Open State of Adultery.—An indictment for living together in open state of adultery, which charges the offense in the language of the statute, is sufficient.</p> <p>2. Same—Form of, Under the Statute.—Section 408 of the criminal code, providing that every indictment shall be deemed sufficiently technical and correct which states the offense in the language of the statute creating it, was intended to do away with the technicality of the common law, and under it courts ought not to make use of those technicalities in so strictly construing the statute as to annul its reasonable scope and effect.</p> <p>3. Adultery—How Proven.—The offense of adultery is sufficiently proven by circumstances which raise the presumption of cohabitation and unlawful intimacy.</p> <p>4. Same—Evidence of Former Acts.—On the trial of an indictment for living together in an open state of adultery, evidence tending to show continuous acts of improper intimacy between the defendants at different periods and places, before the commission of the offense alleged in the indictment, is competent to show the relation existing between the parties.</p> <p>5. Evidence—Decrees, When Not Competent.—On the trial of two persons for living in open adultery a decree previously entered in a divorce suit between one of the defendants and her husband is not admissible.</p> <p>Me. Justice Harker dissents.</p>

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently November 1910

1 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1896-06-01

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Me. Justice Haekee

¶1dissenting.

¶2I am unable to concur with my associates, for the reason that there is not, in my opinion, sufficient evidence to sustain a judgment of conviction.

¶3Whatever view may be taken of the conduct of the defendant and their relations prior to the time Mrs. Stiles moved to Kane county, there is no evidence that they lived in an open state of adultery there, or committed in that county a single act of adultery. Not one of the witnesses for the State, as to occurrences in Kane county, testified to an adulterous act or to anything like adulterous behavior or indecent familiarity between them. Upon the contrary the uncontradicted testimony of witnesses living at St. Charles, and so situated as to observe their daily conduct, was that their demeanor toward each other was entirely proper and not of a character to even excite suspicion of illicit relations.

¶4The most that can be said of the evidence upon this branch of the case is that there was opportunity for illicit intercourse between the parties at St. Charles. The very gravamen of the charge is that the defendants lived together in Kane county in an adulterous state so as to scandalize and disgrace the community there. To my mind it is clear that the charge is not proven beyond a reasonable doubt by merely showing acts tending to prove adultery between the parties prior to the time of moving to Kane county and showing opportunities merely to commit adultery in that county. To convict under such proof appears to me to be convicting of crime upon mere suspicion.

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