Cahill v. People

Citations

• 106 Ill. 621
• 1883 Ill. LEXIS 212

Syllabus

<p>1. Abbest—power of officer to arrest without warromt. Where a criminal offence has been committed, as, shooting at a person, and an officer is informed of that fact, so that he has reasonable grounds for believing the person to be arrested has committed such offence, he is expressly authorized by the statute to arrest such person without a warrant, and so he has the right to arrest one without a warrant who commits an assault and battery in his presence.</p> <p>2. Same—right to break open doors to arrest. The law is well settled that an officer who has arrested a criminal, when he escapes may, if it becomes necessary, break open the doors of his house to re-arrest him.</p> <p>3. Crriminal law—when proof of prior assault is material. On the trial of one for murder, in shooting and killing an officer while breaking in the door of the defendant’s house to re-arrest him after his escape from arrest for a criminal offence, the proof showed that the defendant was informed and knew the persons asking and seeking admittance into the house were officers seeking to arrest him, and that he refused to open the door. The defendant offered to prove that on the night before the shooting a crowd was in the yard and stoned his house, and that a part of that crowd was there at the time of the attempted arrest, which the court refused to admit: Held, that there was no error in the ruling.</p> <p>4. Same—when prior assault will justify a resort to self-defence. Prior attacks upon a person or Ms house may create a reasonaMe apprehension of danger when he is again attacked by the same person or persons, when, if no prior attack had been made, the acts of the assailant would not tend to produce in the mind of a reasonable man apprehension he was in peril. In other words, the proof of prior assault or threats might justify a defendant in the right of self-defence, when, in the absence of this, the assault made would not confer upon the party assailed the right to resort to self-defence