Williams v. People

Citations

• 101 Ill. 382
• 1882 Ill. LEXIS 95

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal law—of the indictment—for receiving stolen goods. An indictment for receiving stolen goods for gain, etc., should describe the goods with accuracy, and a variance in this particular will be fatal.</p> <p>2. Same—proof must sustain every material allegation. It is an elementary principle that every material fact essential to the commission of a crime must be distinctly alleged and clearly proven on the trial in order to warrant a conviction.</p> <p>3. Same—on charge of receiving stolen money, a larceny of the money must be shown. It is absolutely essential to a conviction for having received stolen money for gain, knowing it to have been stolen, that the prosecution should prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a larceny of the money had been committed. This fact, being the corpus delicti, can not be established alone by the confession of the accused.</p> <p>i. Same—sufficiency of proof in the particular case. A charge in an indictment that the defendants, “for their own gain, knowingly and feloniously received one gold coin of the value of §10, one bill, purporting to be issued by the Monmouth National Bank, of the value of $10, and one bill, purporting to be issued by some National bank, of the value pf $5,” knowing them to have been stolen, is not sustained by the testimony of a witness that he found on one of the defendants $10, and on the other $15 and some small change, as it does not show it was of the kind and character of money described in the indictment.</p>