People v. Flanagan

• Decision Date: 21 February 1930
• Docket Number: No. 19787.,19787.
• Citation: 170 N.E. 265,338 Ill. 353
• Parties: PEOPLE v. FLANAGAN.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

338 Ill. 353

170 N.E. 265

PEOPLE

v.FLANAGAN.

No. 19787.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 21, 1930.

Error to Circuit Court, Massac County; D. T. Hartwell, Judge.

Lewis Flanagan was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and be brings error.

Affirmed.John W. Browning, of Harrisburg, and H. A. Evans, of Metropolis, for plaintiff in error.

Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., Roy R. Helm, State's Atty., of Metropolis, and Joel C. Fitch, of Albion, for the People.

DE YOUNG, J.

Lewis Flanagan was indicted in the circuit court of Massac county for the involuntary manslaughter of Henry C. Walters. The jury found him guilty, and, after his motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were denied, he was sentenced to the penitentiary. He prosecutes this writ of error for a review of the record.

Henry C. Walters, 70 years of age, resided in the city of Metropolis, in Massac county. He operated a grist-mill, cut wood, and gathered mussel from the Ohio river. After his day's work was done he collected, by means of a pushcart, garbage which he fed to his hogs and chickens. On the evening of October 10, 1928, at about 7 o'clock, he left his home with his cart, and, while proceeding west on Sixth street, between Metropolis and Ferry streets, was struck by an automobile and injured. He died eight days later.

On the night in question, five persons heard a crash on Sixth street of short distance east of Ferry street. Four of these, A. F. Smith, Perry Martin, Earl Collard, and Jesse Pansing resided on Sixth street in the immediate vicinity of the place of the accident, and the fifth, Sam Kelly, was a pedestrian along the street at the time. Immediately after hearing the crash, Smith saw a Ford automobile, without lights, turn north from Sixth street into Ferry street. He also heard a person shout, and discovered a cart near the south curb of the street. As Smith started toward the cart, a man, afterwards identified as Walters, bleeding from a wound on the head, approached from the north side of the street. Simultaneously with the crash, Martin heard the application of the brakes of an automobile and an exclamation of pain by some person. He immediately went to the scene of the accident, and saw Walters and the cart at the curb. Collard saw a man pushing a cart in Sixth street. When he heard the crash, he saw the dust raised by an automobileproceeding west without lights. The man pushing the cart disappeared momentarily, and then reappeared and ran to the middle of the street. The automobile did not stop, but after the accident its speed was accelerated, and it turned north on Ferry street. Meanwhile the cart rolled to the gutter on the south side of the street. Pansing saw a Ford touring automobile turn from Sixth street into Ferry street after he heard the crash. At the same time he discovered a man lying in the street groaning. Pansing assisted him to his feet and to the sidewalk. His hand and eye were cut and his face was skinned. Kelly not only heard the crash but also the application of the automobile's brakes. Walters was assisted into an automobile by Smith and several other persons and taken to a physician's office. Later in the evening he was removed to his home.

The chief of police of the city of Metropolis testified that the automobile of the plaintiff in error had no lights, and that he was discovered about three hours after the accident in an outlying portion of the city, sparsely settled, where he was arrested. The sheriff of Massac county found that the automobile had neither bulbs in the light sockets nor a lens in one of its lamps.

Isabelle Walters, the widow of the decedent, testified that the plaintiff in error came to her home about midnight following the accident; that he told her husband he was the man who ran over him; that, when asked why he did not stop, he answered that he thought a person on the sidewalk was colored, and he did not want to converse with a negro, and that he regretted the occurrence. Ruth Peoples, decedent's daughter, corroborated her mother's testimony, and added that her father told the plaintiff in error that he had run over him; that both wheels had passed over his shoulder and stomach; that he would never recover, and that the plaintiff in error should have stopped. To this statement, the plaintiff in error merely replied, according to the daughter's testimony, that he was in a hurry.

The evidence further disclosed that Walters received external bruises about the body, and that he suffered pain in the shoulder and abdomen. A post mortem examination was conducted. Four physicians testified and all found that Walters had peritonitis. Three of the physicians stated that it might have been caused by a blow or bruise. The fourth physician had expressed the opinion at the inquest that Walters died of peritonitis caused by the accident. On the trial he testified that he had discovered no indication of a bruise or other external injury upon Walters' body and that he believed peritonitis had been brought about by a hernia, because, at the time of the accident, Walters was so afflicted, and because the witness, since the inquest, had heard that the automobile of the plaintiff in error never passed over Walters' body.

The plaintiff in error testified in his own behalf, and the substance of his testimony is as follows: On the evening in question, at about 6:30 o'clock, while driving his Ford touring automobile west on Sixth street, he saw an automobile with glaring headlights approach, and to avoid a collision he turned toward the curb and stopped. After the car had passed he proceeded west in the center of the street at a speed of 7 or 8 miles an hour. He had gone only a short distance when he discovered a cart about 30 feet ahead. To avoid striking the cart, he passed it to the left, but the fender of his car caught the handle of the cart and splashed some of the garbage over his automobile. The cart rolled toward the gutter on the south side of the street, and the plaintiff in error stopped. The street was lighted, looking about he saw no one, and apparently having caused no injury or damage, he proceeded west and turned north on Ferry street. He called at one or two places and then returned to his home, where he washed his automobile. Later he drove to the western boundary of Metropolis, where, at about 10 o'clock, he was arrested. About midnight he called at Walters' home, introduced himselfto Mrs. Walters, made inquiry concerning her husband's condition, and stated that he had been accused of running over her husband, but denied the accusation. The plaintiff in error admitted that on the evening in question the battery in his automobile was very weak, and that at times he had no lights. He denied that his automobile struck any person on that evening.

Before the trial began, the plaintiff in error made a motion to quash the indictment, but the motion was denied. His first contention for a reversal of the judgment is that the indictment failed to apprise him of the charge laid against him, and that his motion, for that reason, should have been granted. The indictment in the present case is identical in form with the first count of the indictment subjected to attack upon the same ground, among others, in People v. Falkovitch, 280 Ill. 321, 117 N. E. 398, Ann. Cas. 1918B, 1077, and there sustained. Section 6 of division 11 of the Criminal Code (Cahill's Stat. 1929, p. 996, c. 38, § 740; Smith's Stat. 1929, p. 1061, c. 38, § 716) provides: ‘Every indictment or accusation of the grand jury shall be deemed sufficiently technical and correct which states the offense in the terms and language of the statutes creating the offense, or so plainly that the nature of the offense may be easily understood by the jury.’ An indictment or information is sufficient if it is specific enough to notify the defendant of the charge which he is to meet and to enable him to prepare his defense. People v. Westerdahl, 316 Ill. 86, 146 N. E. 737;People v. Love, 310 Ill. 558, 142 N. E. 204;People v. Cohen, 303 Ill. 523, 135 N. E. 731;People v. Connors, 301 Ill. 249, 133 N. E. 675;People v. Krause, 291 Ill. 64, 125 N. E. 726; People v. Falkovitch, supra; People v. Weil, 244 Ill. 176, 91 N. E. 112. In addition to the general allegations pertaining to the particular charge, the instant indictment specifically set forth the assault made by the plaintiff in error upon Walters, the time and place of the assault, the means or instrument by which it was inflicted, the consequent death of his victim, and the time of the latter's death. It would be difficult more fully to apprise a defendant of the charge made against him, and the trial court properly denied the motion to quash the indictment.

Complaint is made of certain instructions given to the jury at the prosecution's request. The first instruction told the jury, in substance, that, if they believed from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the...