People v. McIntosh

• Decision Date: 22 December 1909
• Citation: 90 N.E. 180,242 Ill. 602
• Parties: PEOPLE v. McINTOSH.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

242 Ill. 602

90 N.E. 180

PEOPLE

v.McINTOSH.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 22, 1909.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Arthur H. Chetlain, Judge.

Melvin C. McIntosh was convicted of forgery, and brings error. Affirmed.

William E. Freer and Bedard & Spitzer (John F. Geeting, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

W. H. Stead, Atty Gen., John E. W. Wayman, State's Atty., and June C. Smith (Edward S. Day, of counsel), for the People.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

Melvin C. McIntosh, plaintiff in error, was convicted in the criminal court of Cook county of the crime of forgery, and was sentenced to the penitentiary. He sued out a writ of error in this case to review the judgment, and assigned upon the record a number of alleged errors, which, with the exception of two, have been eliminated either by amendment of the record or stipulation of counsel. The two remaining questions are whether the venue was proved, and whether the court erred in giving an instruction to the jury.

The facts proved, and not controverted, are as follows: On February 23, 1906, William Sandman, who lived at Lake Zurich, in Lake county, delivered to the defendant, Melvin C. McIntosh, an attorney at law, at his office in the city of Chicago, Cook county, checks amounting to $2,500 to be loaned by the defendant, who gave a receipt for that amount, showing that the money was received to be loaned. A few days afterward the defendant came to the home of Sandman, in Lake Zurich, in Lake county, and delivered to Sandman forged promissory notes to the amount of $2,500, among which was a note dated Barrington, Ill., February 24, 1906, for $500, payable six months after date to the defendant, indorsed by him, and purporting to be signed by William Howarth, whose residence was in Barrington, a village partly in Cook county and partly in Lake county. Howarth lived in that part of Barrington which was in Cook county. When the defendant delivered the notes to Sandman, he said that he had made loans and got the notes for the money.

The venue was a jurisdictional fact which the people were required to prove (Jackson v. People, 40 Ill. 405;Moore v. People, 150 Ill. 405, 37 N. E. 909) but it was not an element of the crime to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt (Wilson v. State, 62 Ark. 497, 36 S. W. 842,54 Am. St. Rep. 303;Smith v. State, 29 Fla. 408, 10 South. 894;State v. Meyer, 135 Iowa, 507, 113 N. W. 332, 124 Am. St. Rep. 291;State v. Burns, 48 Mo. 438; 13 Ency. of Evidence, 931). The venue is proved if there is evidence from which it can reasonably be inferred that the crime was committed within the jurisdiction where the prosecution takes place. In Bland v. People, 3 Scam. 364, it was said that it would be difficult ever to prove the venue of a forgery if the law did not warrant inferences from established facts, and that in the absence of other proof an attempt to pass a forged instrument in Sangamon county would justify an inference that the place of the forgery was in that county. In Langdon v. People, 133 Ill. 382, 24 N. E. 874, there was testimony tending in some degree to show that the crime was committed in Kankakee county, and, as this court could not say that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence on that question, such testimony was considered sufficient.

Counsel for plaintiff in error, relying upon the law as stated in Bland v. People, supra, contend that the delivery of the note to Sandman in Lake county raised an inference that the note was forged in that county, and that there was no evidence which would justify a conclusion that the crime was committed in Cook county. If there had been no evidence tending to prove that the forgery was committed...