Peacock v. People

Citations

• 83 Ill. 331

Syllabus

<p>1. Scire facias—on recognizance, amendable. A scire facias on a recognizance, being both, process and declaration, is subject to the same rules of amendment as declarations in other cases. The proceeding is not criminal in its nature, but to enforce the payment of money due on a contract.</p> <p>3. Same—pleas of nil debet and denying execution not proper. Where a recognizance is returned to and filed in the office of the clerk of the circuit court, it becomes a record of that court, and, therefore, pleas to a seire facias issued thereon, that the defendants did not make and execute the recognizance, and nil debet, are not proper.</p> <p>3. Same—amendment of sheriff’s return to obviate plea. If the sureties in a recognizance plead to a scire facias thereon, that there is no return of nihil indorsed on the writ as to the principal, the court may allow an amendment of the return, and thereby obviate the plea.</p> <p>4. Same—plea of duress. A plea to a scire facias upon a recognizance, that, at the time of entering into the recognizance, the principal was not in the legal custody of the sheriff taking the same, upon any indictment, or upon any process of capias ordered to be issued against the principal by authority of law, is bad on demurrer, as no order is required for issuing- a capias against one indicted, and as not showing wherein the imprisonment by the sheriff was unlawful.</p> <p>5. Same—duress of principal not good as to surety. A surety can not plead the duress of his principal, in a recognizance, as a discharge of his own liability.</p> <p>6. Same—false representations. A plea by the sureties to a scire facias on a recognizance, that the principal and sureties entered into the same under the false and fraudulent representations of the sheriff that the principal was then in his legal custody and confined in jail under due process of law, whereas such was not the fact, negativing the truth of the representations, is manifestly insufficient, as the represent