Honselman v. People

• Decision Date: 01 November 1897
• Parties: HONSELMAN v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

168 Ill. 172

48 N.E. 304

HONSELMAN

v.PEOPLE.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 1, 1897.

Error to circuit court, Piatt county; Francis M. Wright, Judge.

Charles Honselman was convicted of crime, and brings error. Affirmed.Lodge & Hicks and M. R. Davidson, for plaintiff in error.

Charles F. Mansfield, State's Atty., and E. C. Akin, Atty. Gen., for the People.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

Plaintiff in error was found guilty by the verdict of the jury, and sentenced by the court to the penitentiary, under the first count of an indictment by which he was charged with committing the crime against nature. Previous to the trial a motion to quash said count was overruled, and it is claimed that the court erred in such action, because the count was uncertain and insufficient, in not fully informing the defendant of the nature of the offense charged, and of what facts were relied on as establishing his guilt. The count charged that the defendant, at a certain time and place therein named, committed ‘the infamous crime against nature upon and with one Lloyd Kesler, a man then and there being.’ We regard this as sufficient to apprise defendant of the nature of the charge against him. The name of the man with whom the crime was committed was given, and the count satisfied the requirement of the Criminal Code by stating the offense in the terms and language of the statute. Section 47 of the Criminal Code, under which it was drawn, uses the language ‘the infamous crime against nature, either with man or beast,’ and this is the language of the count. The statute gives no definition of the crime, which the law, with due regard to the sentiments of decent humanity, has always treated as one not fit to be named. It was never the practice to describe the particular manner or the details of the commission of the act, but the offense was treated in the indictment as the abominable crime not fit to be named among Christians. 4 Bl. Comm. 215. The existence of such an offense is a disgrace to human nature. The legislature has not seen fit to define it further than by the general term, and the records of the courts need not be defiled with the details of different acts which may go to constitute it. A statement of the offense in the language of the statute, or so plainly that its nature may be easily understood by the jury, is all that is required. Cr. Code, div. 11, § 6; Morton v. People, 47 Ill. 468;Plummer v. People, 74 Ill. 361;Loehr v. People, 132 Ill. 504, 24 N. E. 68;West v. People, 137 Ill. 189, 27 N. E. 34, and 34 N. E. 254. Defendant knew that he was charged with carnal copulation, against the order of nature, with a man, Lloyd Kesler, and could plead the judgment in bar of further prosecution for the same offense. This is all that was necessary.

But it is also contended that the evidence for the people, if true, did not prove the offense, because the defendant made use of his mouth. The evidence was that he was the principal actor in the transaction, and by his efforts the act was consummated by that means. The claim is that the evidence must prove the crime of sodomy, and that the crime against nature, as defined in our statute, embraces nothing but sodomy, or buggery, as denominated in the English statute. With this we cannot agree. While the ‘crime against nature’ and ‘sodomy’ have often been used as synonymous terms, paragraph 279 of our Criminal Code, defining infamous crimes, plainly shows that the legislature included in the crime against nature other forms of the offense than sodomy or buggery. It is there enacted: ‘Every person convicted of the crime of * * * sodomy or other crime against nature * * * shall be deemed infamous,’ etc. The method employed in this case is as much against nature, in the sense of being unnatural and against the order of nature, as sodomy or...