People v. Burns

• Decision Date: 19 May 1949
• Docket Number: No. 30871.,30871.
• Citation: People v. Burns, 403 Ill. 407, 86 N.E.2d 197 (Ill. 1949)
• Parties: PEOPLE v. BURNS.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

403 Ill. 407

86 N.E.2d 197

PEOPLE

v.BURNS.

No. 30871.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 19, 1949.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Harry M. Fisher, Judge.

Lucian Burns was convicted of robbery while armed, and he brings error.

Judgment affirmed.

Lucian Burns, pro se.

Ivan A. Elliott, Atty. Gen., and John S. Boyle, State's Atty., of Chicago (John T. Gallagher, W. S. Miroslawski, and William Brumlik, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

CRAMPTON, Justice.

Plaintiff in error, Burns, was convicted and sentenced in the criminal court of Cook County for the crime of robbery while armed. He appears here pro se on a writ of error with only the common-law record.

He believes the indictment should, under the law, have contained a specific designation of the place of the robbery as supposedly required by section 9 of the bill of rights, (Const. 1870, art. II, sec. 9, Smith-Hurd Stats.) which requires, ‘* * * the accused shall have the right * * * to demand the nature and cause of the accusation * * *.’ He believes the claimed lack of such vitiates the case from inception to conclusion.

Count 1 of the indictment charged him with feloniously and violently assaulting John A. Hopkins, thus putting the latter in fear of his life, and feloniously and violentlyby force and intimidation stealing from his person $250, then in his custody as being the property of him and one Ravenesi, copartners doing business under the name of ‘H & R Liquors,’ Burns at the time being armed with a pistol. Count 2 was the same except it did not charge him with being armed.

The whole trouble on this assignment arises from Burns's erroneous belief he was charged and tried for robbing the liquor store. The place of the commission of the offense of robbing a natural person need not be precisely laid or proved where the place of the commission of the offense is not an element thereof. The gist of armed robbery is the force or intimidation used in taking another's property against his will. People v. Knox, 302 Ill. 471, 134 N.E. 923;People v. Guinto, 374 Ill. 404, 29 N.E.2d 602. Under the charge laid, all the People needed to do was to prove Burns robbed Hopkins within the bounds of Cook County. The indictment is sufficient when it is specific enough to notify Burns of the charge he had to meet and enable him to prepare his defense. People v. Shaffer, 400 Ill. 332, 79 N.E.2d 477. Section 9 of the bill of rights requires no more, and the indictment met that requirement...