Rafferty v. People

Citations

• 69 Ill. 111

Syllabus

<p>1. Wabkant—issued in Uanh, a nullity. Where a magistrate signs warrants in blank, and delivers the same to a police officer to be filled up with the names of persons to be arrested, as occasion may require, and the police officer fills up one of them for the arrest of an individual, without any charge under oath being first made, the warrant will be a nullity, as not issuing in the ordinary course of justice from a court or magistrate.</p> <p>2. Homicide—when manslaughter, where the hilling takes place in resisting an arrest. It is a general rule that, when persons have authority to arrest or imprison, and while using the proper means for that purpose, are resisted iu so doing and killed, it will be murder in all who take part in sueli resistance. But if the process be defective in the form of it, as, if there be a mistake in the name of the person on whom it is to be executed, or if the name of such person, or of the officer, he inserted without authority, or after the issuing of the process, or if the officer exceed his authority, the killing of the officer in such a case, by the person sought to he arrested, will not he murder, but manslaughter only.</p> <p>3. Three things are to be attended to in matters of this kind,—the legality of the deceased’s authority, the legality of the manner in which he executed it, and the defendant’s knowledge of that authority; for if an officer be killed in attempting to execute a writ or warrant invalid on the face of it, or if issued with a blank in it, and the blank is afterwards filled up by one having no authoritj-, or if issued with an insufficient description, or against a wrong person, or out of the district in which alone it could lawfully be executed, or if a private person interfere and act in a case where he has no authority by law to do so, or if the defendant have no knowledge of the officer’s business, or of the intention with which a private person interferes, and the officer or private person he resisted and ki