People v. Garman
| Decision Date | 24 January 1952 |
| Docket Number | No. 32181,32181 |
| Citation | 103 N.E.2d 636,411 Ill. 279 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. GARMAN. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Burrell & Burrell, of Freeport, and Ralph M. Eaton, of Mount Carroll, for plaintiff in error.
Ivan A. Elliott, Atty. Gen., and Lawrence A. Smith, State's Atty. of Cavanna (Harry L. Pate, of Tuscola, of counsel), for the People.
Max Garman, defendant below, was convicted in the circuit court of Carroll County of the crime of reckless homicide and his punishment was fixed at imprisonment in the county jail for a term of sixty days, and he was to pay a fine of $500. He here prosecutes a writ of error to the circuit court of Carroll County to reverse the judgment.
On October 5, 1951, Max Garman was operating a car in Carroll County, traveling in a westerly direction on Illinois State Route No. 65 between the cities of Lanark and Mount Carroll. Bernard Bowers was a passenger in the automobile operated by Garman. The automobile left the highway and proceeded for about three hundred feet on the shoulder thereof, subsequently turning over. As a result of this occurrence, Bernard Bowers was killed. Max Garman was thereafter indicted by the grand jury of Carroll County for the death of Bernard Bowers. The indictment was in eight counts. Count 1 charged him with driving a car while under the influence of liquor. Count 2 charged reckless homicide and was couched in the language of the statute only, and did not specify or particularize the facts, circumstances and elements constituting the offense. Counts 3, 4 and 5 charged reckless homicide and were not only couched in the language of the statute, but set out with particularity the facts, circumstances and elements constituting the offense charged. Counts 6, 7 and 8 charged defendant with the crime of involuntary manslaughter. Count 2 was nolle prossed at the beginning of the trial on motion of the State's Attorney. Plaintiff in error was found not guilty of driving under the influence of liquor as charged in count 1, and not guilty of involuntary manslaughter as charged in counts 6, 7 and 8. He was found guilty of reckless homicide by the jury. He then moved for arrest of judgment, which motion was overruled by the court.
Garman now prosecutes this writ of error to reverse the judgment. The errors relied on by the plaintiff in error are (1) that the Reckless Homicide Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1951, chap. 38, par. 364a) is so vague, indefinite and uncertain that it is in violation of section 2 of article II of the constitution of Illinois S.H.A., and (2) that if the Reckless Homicide Act is deemed sufficiently definite to be constitutional, it must be for the reason that it charges the crime of manslaughter, and, in that event, the verdict of the jury finding the defendant not guilty of the charge of manslaughter reguires the judgment that the defendant be discharged.
It is Garman's contention that the Reckless Homicide Act violates the requirements of due process as being vague, indefinite and uncertain. It is maintained that the Reckless Homicide Act fails to charge a crime that can be identified by the average honest citizen that is not dependent on the whim of courts and juries. Defendant relies upon the case of People v. Beak, 291 Ill. 449, 126 N.E. 201, for authority for finding this statute unconstitutional as leaving the dividing line between lawful and unlawful to conjecture. That opinion pronounced that in creating by statute an offense which was not a crime at common law such statute must be sufficiently certain to show what the legislature intended to prohibit and punish, otherwise it will be void for uncertainty.
The statute with which we are concerned recites: 'Any person who drives a vehicle with reckless disregard for the safety of others and thereby causes the death of another person shall be guilty of the offense of reckless homicide.' The statute thereafter sets forth the punishment to be fixed. The act to be punished under the statute is driving 'with reckless disregard for the safety of others' resulting in the death of another person.
In People v. Green, 368 Ill. 242, 13 N.E.2d 278, 115 A.L.R. 348, this court departed in part from the holding of the Beak case, stating the true rule to be that if the legislature, in creating a new crime, uses words having a common-law meaning or a meaning made definite by statutory definition or previous judicial construction, it may strike directly at the end intended to be curbed, leaving it to the pleader to state facts bringing the case within the statutory definition and to the judicial department of government to interpret the application of the act to the facts stated. The Indiana case of State v. Beckman, 219 Ind. 176, 37 N.E.2d 531, 533, quoted 'reckless disregard of the rights and safety of others' as a part of Blackstone's common-law definition of manslaughter. It is thus evident that the phrase itself has a common-law definition of its own, descriptive of certain acts. Following the Green case, decided by this court, we will look to the common-law meaning of the phrase to define the acts constituting a violation of the statute. We thus observe that our statute is rendered certain and definite, and is not violative of due process in this respect.
It is significant to note that the courts of many sister States have found their similar statutes, containing the same phrase and defining a similar crime, to be constitutional in every instance that such question has been raised. State v. Gloyd, 148 Kan. 706, 84 P.2d 966; State v. Cantrell, 64 Wyo. 132, 186 P.2d 539; State v. Barnett, 218 S.C. 415, 63 S.E.2d 57; State v. Rachels, 218 S.C. 1, 61 S.E.2d 249; State v. Beckman, 219 Ind. 176, 37 N.E.2d 531.
Having found the Reckless Homicide Act constitutional and not a violation of due process, we come to the proposition raised by plaintiff in error that the act can only be constitutional as charging manslaughter, and, since the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on the manslaughter counts, the plaintiff in error must be discharged as to reckless homicide. Plaintiff in error is incorrect in his allegation that the Beckman case found Indiana's Reckless Homicide Act charged the crime of manslaughter. Assuming, only, that the Illinois Reckless Homicide Act is taken from the Indiana statute, we cannot on the basis of this Indiana case find that manslaughter and reckless homicide...
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