People v. Devore
| Decision Date | 19 January 1949 |
| Docket Number | No. 30850.,30850. |
| Citation | 402 Ill. 339,83 N.E.2d 730 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. DEVORE. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Circuit Court, Macon County; Grover W. Watson, Judge.
Walter Devore was convicted, on a plea of guilty, of receiving stolen property, and he brings error.
Judgment affirmed.
Walter Devore, pro se.
George F. Barrett, Atty. Gen. (Ivan J. Hutchens, State's Attorney, of Decatur, of counsel), for the People.
The defendant, Walter Devore, was indicted in the circuit court of Macon County on May 14, 1948. The indictment consisted of three counts. The first count charged the defendant with larceny of a motor vehicle; the second count charged larceny of a motor vehicle and also charged the defendant with being an habitual criminal. The third count charged him with being a receiver of stolen property. On being arraigned and represented by counsel, the defendant withdrew a former plea of not guilty, signed a jury waiver and entered a plea of guilty to count three of the indictment. The State's Attorney entered a nolle prosequi as to counts one and two. After being admonished by the court as to the consequences of such a plea, the defendant was sentenced to the Illinois State Penitentiary for an indeterminate term of not less than one year nor more than ten years, which is the penalty fixed by statute for the crime of receiving stolen property. He prosecutes this writ of error pro se.
The only complaint assigned in the brief of the plaintiff in error is that the indictment is legally insufficient to charge the defendant with the crime of receiving stolenproperty. No motion was made to quash the indictment. The third count of the indictment charges that the defendant ‘feloniously, unlawfully and unjustly for his own gain, did aid in concealing a motor vehicle, to-wit: a Chevrolet automobile, then and there of a value of One Thousand Dollars and then and there the property of Gordon-Gustafson Pontiac, Inc., a corporation and then and there lately before stolen, taken and driven away from said Gorden-Gustafson Pontiac, Inc., a corporation, by a certain evil disposed person, the said Walter Eugene Devore then and there well knowing the said property aforesaid to have been feloniously stolen.’
It is the contention of the plaintiff in error that the averments of said count are vague and indistinct in that the language ‘lately before stolen, taken and driven away * * * by a certain evil disposed person’ is insufficient pleading to show ‘that the property has, in fact, been stolen by a person other than the one charged with receiving the property.’
He insists that the absence of the specific charge that plaintiff in error had received the stolen automobile from a certain designated person renders the indictment fatally defective. In support of this position he cites and relies upon the holdings in People v. Ensor, 310 Ill. 483, 142 N.E. 175;People v. Dalke, 336 Ill. 446, 168 N.E. 258, 259. In the latter case this court stated that ‘Before there can be a conviction for receiving stolen property, the evidence must show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the property has, in fact, been stolen by a person other than the one charged with receiving the property; that the one charged with receiving it has actually received it, or aided in concealing it; that the receiver knew that the property was stolen at the time he received it; and that he received the property for his own gain, or to prevent the owner...
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