People v. Daugherty

• Decision Date: 03 February 1927
• Docket Number: No. 17625.,17625.
• Citation: People v. Daugherty, 324 Ill. 160, 154 N.E. 907 (Ill. 1927)
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: PEOPLE v. DAUGHERTY.

324 Ill. 160

154 N.E. 907

PEOPLE

v.DAUGHERTY.

No. 17625.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 23, 1926.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 3, 1927.

Error to Hancock County Court; Warren H. Orr, Judge.

Cornelius Daughertly was convicted of Illegally possessing intoxicating liquor, and he brings error.

Affirmed.

Hartzell, Cavanagh & Martin, of Carthage, for plaintiff in error.

Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., Homer H. Williams, State's Atty., of Hamilton, and Roy D. Johnson, of Quincy (O'Harra, O'Harra & O'Harra, of Carthage, of counsel), for the People.

THOMPSON, J.

This writ of error is prosecuted to reverse the judgment of the county court of Hancock county finding plaintiff in error guilty of illegally possessing intoxicating liquor, the errors relied upon for reversal being that the information is insufficient and that evidence procured by a search made under a void warrant was improperly received on the trial.

[1] The information filed in this case contains some unnecessary averments and thereby placed an undue burden on the prosecution, but the surplusage in the information did not in any way prejudice plaintiff in error. The charge is stated substantially in the language of the statute and under the decisions of this court is sufficient. People v. Tate, 316 Ill. 52, 146 N. E. 487;People v. Alfano, 322 Ill. 384, 153 N. E. 729;People v. Talbot, 322 Ill. 416, 153 N. E. 693.

The complaint upon which the search warrant was issued charges that complainant believes ‘intoxicating liquor is now unlawfully kept for sale, possessed, used and disposed of, to wit, at and within a certain frame barn located on the rear of lot eleven (11), in block fourteen (14), in Bartlett & Gordon's addition to the town, now city, of Hamilton, in the county of Hancock and state of Illinois, which said barn is owned by Cornelius Daugherty and is back of a restaurant operated by Paul Garard and a pool hall owned by John A. Kraus, in the county and state aforesaid, and that the following are the reasons for his belief, to wit, that he has been inside said barn and saw a jug of wine and a keg of wine and tasted the wine in the keg, which said wine was intoxicating, the same containing more than one-half of 1 per cent. of alcohol by volume.’ It is contended that the facts stated in this complaint do not show probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant.

[2][3][4] Whether there is probable cause for issuing a search warrant is a judicial question to be determined by the magistrate before whom complaint is made. A definitions of probable cause sufficiently exact to meet satisfactorily every possible test would be difficult, if not impossible, to furnish. The complete legal idea expressed by that term is not to be gathered from a mere definition. Where the question is whether probable cause exists for the issuance of a warrant for the arrest of a person, the term has been defined by this court as ‘a belief held in good faith by the prosecutor in the guilt of the accused, based upon circumstances sufficiently strong to induce the belief in the mind of a reasonably cautions person that the defendant in the prosecution was guilty of the particular offense charged’ (Glenn v. Lawrence, 280 Ill. 581, 117 N. E. 757), and as ...