Earll v. People

Citations

• 73 Ill. 329

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal law—conviction may be for lesser offense than named in indictment. Where a higher and more atrocious crime embraces all the ingredients of a lesser offense, and where the evidence requires, the jury may convict of the latter upon an indictment for the former.</p> <p>2. A defendant, indicted for murder under the statute declaring the causing of the death of a pregnant woman by an attempt to produce her miscarriage to be murder, may be convicted of manslaughter.</p> <p>3. Same—reasonable doubt—what constitutes. An instruction in a criminal case “ that a reasonable doubt means, in law, a serious, substantial and well founded doubt, and not the mere possibility of a doubt, and the jury have no right to go outside of the evidence to search for or hunt up doubts (in order to acquit the defendant) not arising from the evidence or want of evidence,” was held to announce the correct rule.</p> <p>4. Evidence—an accomplice a competent witness. An accomplice in a crime is a competent witness, and if the jury weighing the probability of his evidence think him worthy of belief, it is competent for them to convict upon his uncorroborated testimony, but the jury should receive such evidence</p> <p>with great caution.</p> <p>5. Instructions—need not be repeated. It is not error to refuse an inslruction, the substance of which is contained in one given, although the phraseology of the two instructions may be different.</p> <p>6. Bill of exceptions—when necessary. Motions entered in a cause, and affidavits and other papers filed in support of the motion, and the decisions of the court thereon, and exceptions taken to decisions, in order to become a part of the record should be incorporated in a bill of exceptions, and thus preserved, otherwise the decision of the court will not be consid. ered in the Supreme Court.</p> <p>7. Law and fact. The court should not, in an instruction, usurp the province of the jury, in determining the weight to be given to the evidence.</p>