Moore v. People

Citations

• 108 Ill. 484
• 1884 Ill. LEXIS 1506

Syllabus

<p>1. Appeal—reviewing questions of faet. A bastardy proceeding is one in which the finding of the facts by the Appellate Court, in affirming the judgment, is conclusive'upon the parties in this court.</p> <p>2. Evidence—affecting credibility of witness. On the trial of a bastardy suit, the prosecutrix, after being compelled, on the cross-examination, to give a detailed account of the time, place and attendant circumstances of the alleged illicit intercourse, was asked where she went and dined on that day,-counsel proposing to follow this up by showing that she had on different occasions made different statements in that respect, but the court sustained an objection to the question: Held, no error, as the matters proposed were collateral; and also, that while it might have been proper to have allowed questions as to her movements and conduct, yet her answers on such collateral matters would have been conclusive.</p> <p>3. In a bastardy trial a sister of the prosecutrix testified, that on the day the alleged illicit intercourse was had the defendant was where he might have had communication with her, and also that he was hauling different kinds of hay from one place to another. In rebuttal, defendant offered to prove that there were not different kinds of hay to be hauled by him, and that the only hauling done by him was from the farm ,on which the sexual intercourse was alleged to have been had, which the court refused to allow,. on objection: Held, that there was no error in refusing the evidence offered.</p> <p>4. Same—effect of evidence to impeach witness may be limited to that purpose. On the trial of a bastardy charge, the defendant, by way of impeaching a witness for the prosecution, proved he hadusaid there were two or three into the scrape, from what he had heard from the little girls in the family, sisters of the prosecutrix. The court instructed the jury that such statements, if made by the witness, were not evidence tending to prove that some other person