Hroneck v. People

• Decision Date: 12 June 1890
• Citation: 134 Ill. 139,24 N.E. 861
• Parties: HRONECK v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

134 Ill. 139

24 N.E. 861

HRONECK

v.PEOPLE.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 12, 1890.

Error to criminal court, Cook county.

Julius Goldzier, for plaintiff in error.

Geo. Hunt, Atty. Gen., for the People.

BAKER, J.

The plaintiff in error, John Hroneck, was indicted with Frank Chapek, Frank Chleboun, and Rudolph Sevic for violation of an act of the legislature of this state entitled ‘An act to regulate the manufacture, transportation, use, and sale of explosives, and to punish an improper use of the same,’ approved June 16, 1887, and in force July 1, 1887. Rev. St. 1889, c. 38, §§ 54 hi-54 in. The first count charged the defendants with unlawfully making dynamite, with the unlawful intention of destroying the lives of certain persons therein named; and in the five remaining counts the defendants were charged successively in such several counts with manufacturing, compounding, buying, selling, and procuring dynamite, with the same unlawful purpose and intent. The defendant Hroneck was alone put upon trial, and that trial resulted in a verdict of guilty, and fixing his punishment at 12 years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were severally overruled, and the said defendant was sentenced on the verdict. Numerous grounds are urged for reversal, which we shall consider, substantially, in the order they are made.

It is insisted that the statute upon which the prosecution is based is unconstitutional in that it is obnoxious to section 13 of article 4 of the constitution of the state, which provides ‘that no act hereafter passed shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.’ The specific objection is made that two distinct subjects are expressed in the title. That objection is without merit. The act is entitled ‘An act to regulate the manufacture, transportation, use, and sale of explosives, and to punish an improper use of the same.’ The regulation of the use necessarily implies the right to punish an improper use. To ‘regulate’ means to adjust by rule or regulation; and any attempt to fix rules for the manufacture, transportation, use, and sale of explosives that did not also prescribe punishment for violation of such rules and regulations would necessarily be imperfect. Two different subjects are not included or expressed in or by the title; for the punishment of an improper use flows necessarily and legitimately from the main or substantive object as stated in the title, i. e., to regulate the use, etc., of explosives. It is not necessary that the title shall express all of the minor divisions of the general subject to which the act relates; and it is sufficient if it express the general subject of the act, and all the minor subdivisions germane to the general subject will be held to be included in it. But, if the title expresses such minor subdivisions, which without such expressions would be held to be included within the general subject, such expression will not render the title obnoxious to the constitutional provision. Plummer v. People, 74 Ill. 361;Fuller v. People, 92 Ill. 182;Magner v. People, 97 Ill. 320;Cole v. Hall, 103 Ill. 30;Prescott v. City of Chicago, 60 Ill. 121;Potwin v. Johnson, 108 Ill. 71;Timm v. Harrison, 109 Ill. 593; Hawthorn v. People, Id. 302; People v. Wright, 70 Ill. 389;City of Virden v. Allan, 107 Ill. 505.

The contention that the statute itself treats of two separate and well-defined subjects is not tenable. It is said that the first three sections of the act relate to the ‘manufacture and use of explosives for illegal purposes,’ while the four remaining sections relate to ‘the manufacture, sale, and transportation of explosives for legitimate purposes.’ It is therefore claimed that the former sections should properly be found in the Criminal Code, and that they are not germane to the other sections of the act, which are mere police regulations. The general subject of the statute is the manufacture, transportation, use, and sale of explosives; and it cannot be said that because one section provides for a license or permit to be obtained for their manufacture, and another prohibits the storing of explosives within a certain distance of inhabited dwellings, and another punishes fraudulent acts to procure the transportation of explosives in public conveyances, that still another section, or other sections, making it unlawful to manufacture or procure such explosives with the intent to use the same for unlawful destruction of life or property, and affixing a penalty therefor, would not be within the same general subject of legislation. It can no more be said that the prohibition, under a penalty, against storing explosives in dangerous proximity to a dwelling, is a police regulation, than that a like prohibition against manufacturing or procuring the same for an unlawful use or purpose is a police regulation. All of the provisions of the act are within the subject expressed in the title, and are germane to each other, and to the general scope and purpose of the act.

It is next claimed that the section of the statute under which this indictment was prosecuted is not sufficiently definite to authorize imprisonment in the penitentiary. Section 1 of the act provides that whoever shall be guilty of the acts therein denounced ‘shall be deemed guilty of felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of not less than five years, nor more than twenty-five years.’ It is urged that as it is not stated the imprisonment shall be in the penitentiary, and the statute is highly penal, and requires strict construction, a sentence thereunder to the penitentiary cannot be sustained. We are not prepared to adopt this view. The offense is by the act declared to be a felony. A felony is by the Criminal Code of the state declared to be an offense punishable by death or confinement in the penitentiary. Rev. St. 1889, c. 38, § 277. While the legislature undoubtedly may provide for the punishment of misdemeanors by imprisonment in the penitentiary, and undoubtedly might, if they saw proper, punish felonies otherwise than by imprisonment in the penitentiary, yet there is nothing in these sections of the act which indicates an intention to do the latter. Applying the well-known rule that a criminal statute is to be strictly construed, and that nothing is to be taken by intendment or implication against the accused beyond the literal and obvious meaning of the statute, it is nevertheless clear, we think, when this statute is considered in connection with the general Criminal Code, which it must be presumed the legislature had in contemplation when passing it, the punishment to be inflicted for violation of said sections of the act is by imprisonment in the penitentiary.

It is insisted that the verdict is void for uncertainty, in that it simply finds ‘the defendant’ guilty, without specifying the plaintiff in error by name. Before plaintiff in error was put upon trial a separate trial had been awarded to the defendants Chapek and Sevic. The defendant Chleboun was not put upon trial, but was used as a witness on behalf of the people. The record shows that on the 26th day of November, 1888, at the term of the criminal court then being held, the following proceedings were had and entered of record, to-wit: ‘The People of the State of Illinois v. John Hroneck, impleaded,’ etc. ‘This day come the said people by Joel M. Longnecker, state's attorney, and the said defendant, as well in his own proper person as by his counsel, also comes. And now, issue being joined, it is ordered that a jury come,’ etc. Then follows the impaneling of a jury. It is manifest from the foregoing that no one was put upon trial other than the defendant Hroneck, and the verdict finding ‘the defendant’ guilty could not refer to any other defendant. There was no uncertainty in the verdict.

Complaint is made of the second instruction given on behalf of the people. That instruction told the jury that any person abetting or assisting in the perpetration of the offense mentioned in section 1 of the act was upon conviction to be punished as provided in said first section. This was not error. The statute provides that any person abetting or in any way assisting in making, manufacturing, buying, procuring, etc., such explosives, etc., knowing or having reason to believe that the same are intended to be used by any person or persons in any way for the unlawful injury to or destruction of life or property, shall be deemed a principal, and upon conviction shall be subject to the same punishment as provided in section 1 of the act. Under this statute a defendant, if guilty as an accessory before the fact, is to be indicted and punished as a principal. In view of the evidence tending to show the connection of plaintiff in error with the other defendants in the perpetration of the offense, the instruction was entirely proper.

It is objected that the court erred in refusing an instruction that the evidence of private detectives and of the police ‘should be received with a large degree of caution.’ This instruction does not contain a correct proposition of law. All the circumstances connected with a witness, or that might tend to affect his credibility or bias his judgment, are competent to be shown to and considered by the jury in determining the weight and credit to be given to his testimony. In view of the facts and circumstances thus shown, it is for the jury to determine its weight as matter of fact.

It is urged that the court erred in modifying an instruction asked by the defendant. The instruction as asked was as follows: ‘The jury are instructed that, to constitute the crime charged against the defendant in the indictment, two things are necessary, namely: First, the making, manufacturing, compounding, buying, selling, or disposing of the dynamite, or some portion thereof, described in the indictment, on or subsequent...