Dempsey v. People of State

• Decision Date: 30 June 1868
• Citation: 47 Ill. 323,1868 WL 4985
• Parties: ARTHUR DEMPSEY, JR.,v.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

47 Ill. 323

1868 WL 4985 (Ill.)

ARTHUR DEMPSEY, JR.,

v.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June Term, 1868.

WRIT OF ERROR to the Circuit Court of Randolph county; the Hon. SILAS L. BRYAN, Judge, presiding.

The opinion states the case.

Mr. H. K. S. O'MELVENY and Mr. THOMAS G. ALLEN, for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. AMOS WATTS, for the people.

Mr. JUSTICE WALKER delivered the opinion of the Court:

It appears from the record in this case that plaintiff in error was indicted in the Washington Circuit Court, for the murder of Benjamin Rainey. The venue was afterwards changed to Randolph county, and a trial was had at the September term, 1867, of that court, but the jury failing to agree, the accused was admitted to bail. At the April term, 1868, another trial was had by the court and a jury, which resulted in finding the defendant guilty, and his sentence to be hung. He brings the record to this court, and assigns a number of errors, for a reversal of the judgment.

In the progress of the trial, Lewis W. Jackson, a witness on the part of the prosecution, testified that he was hired by the accused to kill deceased, and that in pursuance to that arrangement, had shot him while plowing in the field. In the course of his evidence, he stated that he left Washington county the next day after the murder; came through the woods to Chester; stopped at Georgetown; bought a coat, a hat, a pair of shoes and a knife at that place. A juror thereupon called on George M. Suesberry to know of him if he knew if the statement of the witness, Jackson, in reference to having been in Georgetown, Randolph county, Illinois, was correct. Suesberry came forward, and said that the witness' statement in reference thereto was perfectly correct.

It is urged that it was error to permit this unsworn statement to go to the jury as evidence. In capital cases, every feeling of humanity, as well as the principles of justice, require that the accused should have a fair and impartial trial. In such trials, the essential forms of the law, adopted and adhered to for the purpose of protecting the citizen in his rights, must be observed. And one of these requirements, coeval with the common law itself, is, that the people's witnesses, in all criminal proceedings, must be sworn before they can give testimony. To permit bystanders to give testimony, not under the sanction of an oath, is not only contrary to law, but is opposed to our sense of justice, in any case, but the mind is shocked when such evidence is given against the accused in a capital case. Human life cannot be sported with in this manner. To permit it would be to place the life of the accused at the mercy of the unscrupulous, actuated by we know not what feelings of prejudice, passion or malignity, without the fear of punishment in this life or in the future for the crime of perjury. Such evidence has never been, and we presume never will be, sanctioned by the laws of a civilized and christian people.

It may be urged that this testimony was unimportant, and could not have worked any injury to plaintiff in error. Who can say what influence it may have had upon the minds of the jury? We presume neither they nor any one else could tell. Here was a witness, giving the...