Ritzman v. People

Citations

• 110 Ill. 362
• 1884 Ill. LEXIS 1366

Syllabus

<p>1. Obiminal law—encouraging commission of unlawful act, resulting in homicide—liability for consequences. Several persons of a party passing along a highway got out of the wagon in which they were traveling and went into an orchard without permission. The owner ordered them to leave, which they refused to do, when others from the wagon entered the orchard, armed with clods of dirt, and assaulted the owner, using very offensive language to him, and one of the party struck the owner, with a clod, upon the back part of the neck, felling him to the ground, from which blow death ensued in a few minutes. It appeared that one of the intruders, who was tried separately, took a part in the affray, and tried to kick the deceased while lying prostrate from the blow. It was held, that it was not necessary to show that he threw the missile which caused the death, in order to sustain his conviction for manslaughter. It was sufficient that he was present, encouraging the perpetration of the offence, to make him equally guilty with the party who struck the fatal blow.</p> <p>2. Evidence—exclamation of one of several persons who had committed an unlawful act. Several persons, including one who was put upon trial for murder, while traveling along the road entered an orchard by the road side, when, without justification, in a difficulty with the owner, who had ordered them to go out of his orchard, some one of the party, by a blow with a clod, killed the owner, and they all then got into the wagon and started toward their homes. A party in pursuit of them, seeking to have them arrested, passed the wagon, when some one of them called out, “Hello, good-looking fellow!” or something like that, but such witness so addressed could not say the defendant was in the wagon at that time. It appeared, however, from the defendant’s own testimony, that he did not get out of the wagon until after they reached the next point where they stopped: Held, that the court properly refused to strike out