Patrick v. People

Citations

• 132 Ill. 529
• 24 N.E. 619
• 1890 Ill. LEXIS 1068

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal law—amending indictment. A State’s attorney has no .authority to amend an indictment. The statutes allowing amendments do not apply in criminal eases, and there is nothing in our statutes authorizing any one to change or modify the language of an indictment as presented by the grand jury.</p> <p>2. So it is error to allow the State’s attorney to strike out of an indictment certain words, changing the charge somewhat, and to require the jury to render a verdict on the indictment as thus amended.</p> <p>3. Same—attempt to commit a crime—defined. An attempt to commit a crime is an endeavor to accomplish it, carried beyond mere preparation, but falling short of execution of the ultimate purpose in any part of it. To make the act an indictable attempt, it must be a cause, as distinguished from a condition.</p> <p>i. Same — attempt to release prisoner from jail — conveying to Mm tools, etc., for that purpose—the statutes construed. An indictment for an attempt to set at liberty one held in jail on a charge of murder, is not sustained by proof that the defendant procured some saws, files and knives, and employed another person to deliver them to the party in jail.</p> <p>5. Section 87 of the Criminal Code, making it a penitentiary offense to set at liberty or rescue, or attempt to set at liberty or rescue, a person ■charged with a capital offense, etc., does not apply to a case where one procures tools, etc., to be conveyed to one in jail to facilitate his escape. That offense is provided for in section 92 of the Criminal Code. By section 273 of the Criminal Code, all attempts to commit offenses are punishable only by imprisonment in the county jail and by fine, not by confinement in the penitentiary.</p> <p>6. Same—variance. Under an indictment framed on section 87 of the Criminal Code, no conviction can be had of one who procures tools to be conveyed to a prisoner for the purpose of facilitating his escape.</p>