Wickersham v. People of State

• Decision Date: 31 December 1834
• Parties: JAMES L. WICKERSHAM, plaintiff in error,v.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, defendants in error.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

1 Scam. 128

2 Ill. 128

1834 WL 2584 (Ill.)

JAMES L. WICKERSHAM, plaintiff in error,

v.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, defendants in error.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

December Term, 1834.

THIS cause was tried at the March term, 1833, of the Clay Circuit Court.

S. BREESE, for the plaintiff in error, cited Nomaque v. The People, Breese, 109; Bibb's and Hardin's Reports, passim.

N. W. EDWARDS, Attorney General, for the defendants in error.

SMITH, Justice, delivered the opinion of the Court:

Wickersham was indicted for malfeasance in office as a justice of the peace. The indictment charges that he took up certain estray animals, specifying the number and kind, and corruptly caused them to be appraised before himself as such justice. A motion to quash the indictment was made in the Circuit Court before pleading, but on what particular ground does not appear. A jury trial was had, and verdict of guilty, upon which judgment of fine and removal from office was rendered, upon the recommendation of the jury. None of the evidence is preserved, nor were any instructions asked of the Court. A motion for a new trial was made, and the reasons filed.

The plaintiff in error has assigned for error, that the indictment contains no indictable offense, and that the Circuit Court erred in refusing a new trial from the facts appearing on record.

On the first point we are to inquire, whether an act of an official character, done by a justice of the peace, with a corrupt intent, is an indictable offense, and whether the indictment charges the commission of such an act with such an intent. By the 110th section (R. L. 195; Gale's Stat. 218) of the act relative to criminal jurisprudence, passed in 1833, it si expressly provided, that justices of the peace may, for corrupt acts of oppression, partiality, or malfeasance in office, be indicted, and upon conviction, they shall be fined and removed from office, upon the recommendation of the jury. From this provision of that act, it can not then be doubted that acts of official misconduct by justices of the peace, done with corrupt motives, are indictable offenses. Whether the acts charged in the indictment to have been committed amount to official misconduct, and whether or not they are charged to have been done with a corrupt intent, and are sufficiently and certainly averred, will be ascertained by comparing the averments with the law regulating the mode of proceedings in the taking up of estray animals.

The indictment charges the accused with taking up the animals and corruptly causing them to be appraised before himself. To authorize an appraisement, the party taking up the estray is to make oath of the fact before a justice of the peace, who is then to issue his warrant to a constable to summon three appraisers, who are to be sworn, before a justice, faithfully and impartially to value the estray. These are the facts which are charged, under the term “““ appraised before himself,” used in the indictment, to have been corruptly done. Whether the acts were done ignorantly, or for corrupt purposes, would necessarily depend on the evidence exhibited on the trial, but that such acts would, in a case where the justice was a party interested, be illegal, we can not doubt; and that they would, if done with a corrupt intent, be an act of malfeasance in office, seems equally certain. The indictment is then substantially good, although it might have been more formal and particular in setting out specifically each illegal and corrupt act embraced in the general allegation of “causing the animals to be corruptly appraised before himself.” As to the other ground in refusing a new trial, it will be seen that, according to the decisions of this Court, it has been adjudged in...