Prichard v. People

Citations

• 149 Ill. 50
• 36 N.E. 103
• 1894 Ill. LEXIS 1684

Syllabus

<p>1. Bigamy—first husband or wife must be living. It is indispensable to the commission of the crime of bigamy that the first husband or wife shall be living at the time of the second marriage; and an indictment which fails to charge that fact is bad, and should, on motion, be quashed, or the judgment should be arrested, on motion.</p> <p>2. Same—sufficiency of indictment. An indictment for bigamy alleged that the defendant, on, etc., at, etc., did marry one Eliza Ann-Sweet, a female, and that the said defendant, Joseph Eerguson Prichard, afterward, to-wit, on, etc., at, etc., feloniously and unlawfully did marry and take to wife one V. M. L., and to him the said V. M. L. was then and there married, the said defendant well knowing the said Eliza Ann Eerguson, his former wife, was then alive, and the said defendant never having been legally divorced from the said Eliza Ann Prichard, etc.: Held, that the indictment was insufficient to sustain a conviction.</p> <p>3. The rule that all the allegations of fact in pleadings shall be direct and positive, and not merely argumentative or inferential, is not changed by section 408 of the Criminal Code, which provides that “every indictment or accusation of the grand jury shall be deemed sufficiently technical and correct which states the offense in the terms- and language of the statute creating the offense, or so plainly that the nature of the offense can be easily understood by the jury.”</p> <p>4. Whether the description of the offense in an indictment is so-plain that its nature can easily be understood by the jury, must depend upon whether it is described with at least a reasonable degree of certainty, using the term “certainty” in its common law sense.</p>