People v. Willis
| Decision Date | 07 March 1899 |
| Citation | 158 N.Y. 392,53 N.E. 29 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. WILLIS et al. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Appeal from supreme court, appellate division, Second department.
Theodore B. Willis and William E. Phillips were indicted for conspiracy. From a judgment of the appellate division (54 N. Y. Supp. 642) reversing a judgment of the special term (Id. 129) sustaining a demurrer to the indictment, accused appeal. Affirmed.
Benjamin F. Tracy and John D. Lindsay, for appellants.
Hiram R. Steele, for the People.
The questions in this case arise upon a demurrer by both defendants to the indictment, charging them with conspiracy, under section 168 of the Penal Code. The defendant Willis was during all the time specified in the indictment the commissioner of city works of the city of Brooklyn, and therefore a public officer, charged by law with important duties concerning the expenditure of money for public works. Various duties were imposed upon him by the city charter with respect to the awarding of contracts for work and materials, and in general he was the chief executive officer of the city with respect to all public works and improvements. The defendant Phillips was a private party, holding no office, public trust, or employment whatever, The indictment charges that these two defendants, with divers other persons to the grand jury unknown, did unlawfully and corruptly conspire, combine, and confederate together between themselves to commit acts for the perversion and obstruction of the due administration of the laws, in that they conspired and agreed among themselves that Phillips and the other persons should or would, during the period or term while the defendant Willis should act as commissioner of city works, demand, obtain, and receive money from persons then or thereafter contracting, or desiring or offering or intending to contract, for the performance of labor or the furnishing of materials for the city in and about its public works, and in cases falling within the scope of the powers and duties of the said commissioner. The indictment then avers that the part which Willis should play in this scheme was to willfully neglect, omit, and violate his duty as commissioner, and permit his subordinates to omit, neglect, and violate their duties in any particular in which such neglect, omission, or violation should appear to the conspirators to be effective in obtaining money from persons offering to contract with the city for labor or materials in order to aid, support, and render effective such demands for money to be made by Phillips and divers other persons, to enable him and them to obtain the same.
The section of the Penal Code above referred to declares that a conspiracy by two or more persons for the perversion or obstruction of justice or of the due administration of the laws is indictable. It will be seen that the allegations of the indictment, so far referred to, are general, charging a conspiracy to be carried into effect by future action on the part of the conspirators, and without stating the particular duties or the particular laws which the commissioner agreed to neglect or violate, or the particular contractors from whom money was to be obtained as the fruits of the conspiracy. These general averments are not sufficient to put the defendants upon trial, since by section 171 of the same Code it is provided that the agreement set out does not amount to a conspiracy, unless some act besides such agreement be done to effect the object thereof, by one or more of the parties to such an agreement. But the indictment, after these general averments, proceeds to state five specific overt acts on the part of the defendants in furtherance of the conspiracy. Each of these overt acts distinctly specifies the time and place, the particular contract, and the particular contractor; and it is averred that Phillips, in pursuance of the conspiracy, demanded and received from each of the contractors certain sums of money, and that Willis, the commissioner, for a like purpose, willfully neglected certain duties imposed by law upon him for the protection of the public interests in the awarding of such contracts, and that such neglect and omission of duty was for the purpose of furthering the conspiracy charged in general terms in the previous part of the indictment.
The principal, if not the only, question, involved in the appeal, is whether the indictment states a criminal offense, within the rules of pleading prescribed by sections 275 and 284 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The contention on the part of the learned counsel for the appellants is that it does not, and various authorities have been cited in support of that contention. It should be observed that the many cases thus cited originated in jurisdictions where the strict rules of the common law with respect to criminal pleadings prevailed, or, at least, in jurisdictions where the more liberal rule enacted by statute in this state was not recognized. An indictment is now good if it contains sufficient averments to inform the defendant of the nature of the accusation against him, and enables him to prepare his defense, and when the record may be admitted as a bar to a second prosecution for the same offense. Pontius v. People, 82 N. Y. 339. We have recently had occasion to pass upon the sufficiency of an indictment for conspiracy that was much more imperfect in form and substance than the one contained in the record now before us. People v. Peckens, 153 N. Y. 576, 47 N. E. 883. It was there held that the old form of pleading in criminal actions had been abolished, and the rules by which the sufficiency of such pleadings is to be determined are those prescribed in the Code; that an indictment is sufficient if it can be understood therefrom that the act or omission charged as the crime is stated with such a degree of certainty as to enable the court to pronounce judgment, upon a conviction, according to the right of the case; that no indictment is insufficient by reason of an ...
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