People v. Secco

• Decision Date: 21 June 1922
• Docket Number: No. 14558.,14558.
• Citation: People v. Secco, 303 Ill. 546, 135 N.E. 884 (Ill. 1922)
• Parties: PEOPLE v. SECCO et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

303 Ill. 546

135 N.E. 884

PEOPLE

v.SECCO et al.

No. 14558.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 21, 1922.

Error to Circuit Court, Franklin County; Charles H. Miller, Judge.

Joe Secco and others were convicted of robbery, and they bring error.

Affirmed.

Otto Christensen, of Chicago, for plaintiffs in error.

Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., Roy C. Martin, State's Atty., of Benton, and Edward C. Fitch, of Springfield (Thomas J. Layman, of Benton, of counsel), for the People.

CARTER, J.

Plaintiff in error were indicted, tried, and convicted in the circuit court of Franklin county for robbery, and judgment was entered on the verdict. This writ of error is sued out to review the common-law record of the trial court.

No bill of exceptions is presented, and apparently one was not preserved, as to the hearing in the trial court.

It is contended that the trial court erred in selecting the special grand jury which returned the indictment and in selecting the petit jury which tried the case. The objections as to the selection of both grand and petit juries are such as can be made to appear only by evidence which cannot become a part of the record, unless it be made so by bill of exceptions. Earll v. People, 73 Ill. 329;Roberts v. Fahs, 36 Ill. 268;People v. Strauch, 247 Ill. 220, 93 N. E. 126. No error is shown in the common-law record, and, there being no bill of exceptions in the record, the objections of plaintiffs in error as to the selection of grand and petit juries are not presented by the record before us. If these questions had been properly raised by the bill of exceptions, it seems clear that, under the holding of this court in Empson v. People, 78 Ill. 248,White v. People, 81 Ill. 333, and Mackin v. People, 115 Ill. 312, 3 N. E. 222, it could not be held that there was any error in the method of selecting the grand jury. Neither could it be held that there was any reversible error committed by the trial court in the method of selecting the petit jury in this case, under the rulings of this court in Siebert v. People, 143 Ill. 571, 32 N. E. 431, and Marzen v. People, 190 Ill. 81, 60 N. E. 102.

It is further argued, by counsel for plaintiffs in error, that the sentence and judgment of the court are erroneous and not sufficient and should be reversed as contrary to law. An examination of the record will disclose that the judgment, after reciting all the different steps of the trial, set out in haec verba the verdict of the jury, which found the defendants guilty of robbery, each having a confederate present armed with a dangerous weapon to aid and abet each of them. The judgment then recites the overruling of the motion for a new trial and the motion in arrest of judgment, and proceeds as follows:

‘Whereupon judgment is by the court rendered...