149 N.E. 269 | Ill. | 1925
Plaintiff in error, James Newcom, was indicted, tried and convicted in the circuit court of Saline county for a violation of an act of the legislature passed in 1921, entitled "An act to punish persons for destroying property, or inflicting injury to persons, by means of any bomb, dynamite or other explosive, or any similar instrument or implement."
The abstract filed in this court is defective, as it does not disclose what judgment was rendered by the circuit court. A party bringing a case to this court for review must furnish such a complete abstract of the record as will fully present every error and exception relied upon sufficiently for the examination and determination of the case without the examination of the record itself. (People v. Raboin,
It is contended by plaintiff in error that the section of the act under which the prosecution was brought is in violation *190 of section 13 of article 4 of the constitution of this State, which provides: "No act hereafter passed shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title, but if any subject shall be embraced in an act which shall not be expressed in the title, such act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be so expressed." The section in question reads as follows: "Whoever shall willfully and maliciously destroy, damage, injure or deface any building used or designed for human occupancy, or shall attempt so to do, by means of any bomb, dynamite or other explosive, or by means of any similar instrument or implement, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for a period of not less than one year nor more than twenty years." (Smith's Stat. 1923, sec. 1, p. 683.)
It is plaintiff in error's contention that the title of the act has restricted the purpose of the act to punish persons for destroying property or inflicting injury to persons, and that having thus restricted the act it may not properly provide for the punishment of those who injure or deface property. The rule of law is, that an investigation like this, concerning the constitutionality of an act of the legislature, begins with the presumption that the act is valid. All doubts or uncertainties arising either from the language of the constitution or the act must be resolved in favor of the validity of the act, and the court will only assume to declare it void in case of a clear conflict with the constitution. The duty of the court is to so construe acts of the legislature as to uphold their constitutionality and validity if it can reasonably be done, and if their construction is doubtful the doubt will be resolved in favor of the law. People v. McBride,
The constitutional provision in question has been uniformly construed liberally in favor of the validity of enactments. (Blake v. People,
The sufficiency of the indictment was challenged in the trial court by motions to quash the indictment and in arrest of judgment. The indictment consisted of nine counts, and while some of the counts are bad for failure to allege that the building in question was either used or designed for human occupancy, at least three of the counts contain every allegation necessary to constitute a good indictment. The verdict in this case was a general verdict of guilty as charged in the indictment, and the rule of law is, that if there is one good count in the indictment which is sufficient to support the judgment the denial of the motions to quash and in arrest of judgment is not such error as requires a reversal of the judgment. Curtis v. People, Breese, 256; People v. McCann,
Other errors are assigned and argued in this case, but all of them pertain to matters which could only properly be preserved for review by a bill of exceptions. What purported to be a bill of exceptions having been stricken from the record by this court, there are left for review only such errors as are assigned and argued upon the record aside *193
from the bill of exceptions, and the court will confine its consideration to such errors. People v. Rosenwald,
No reversible error appearing from the record, the judgment of the circuit court will be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.