Case ID: ill-app_188/html/0278-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Presiding Justice Higbee", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Thomas H. Jones, Plaintiff in Error.
    (Not to he reported in full.)
    Error to the Circuit Court of Hamilton county; the Hon. Enoch E. Newlin, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the March term, 1914.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Opinion filed July 28, 1914.
    Statement of the Case.
    Complaint by the People of the State of Illinois against Thomas H. Jones, charging the defendant with “the criminal offense of trespass by wilfully entering and passing over an improved field, after being expressly forbidden so to do by A. J. Mangis, the owner of said field.” Defendant was found guilty before a justice of the peace, and on appeal to the Circuit Court the jury returned a verdict of guilty and assessed a fine of five dollars. A motion for a new trial was overruled and the court entered judgment against defendant for the amount of the fine and costs. To reverse the judgment, defendant prosecutes a writ of error.
    
      Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Tbespass, § 64
      
      —when person not guilty of statutory offense of trespass. On prosecution a person charged with the criminal offense of trespass on the improved field of another under Criminal Code, ch. 38, § 266, Hurd’s R. S., J. & A., If 3958, held that the defendant was not expressly forbidden to enter upon the premises as required by statute, where the owner posted a notice on the premises addressed to the defendant and the highway commissioners telling them “to stay off his possession there, and not to come there to make a road,” but defendant never saw the notice, and another time when the defendant went to the owner and asked him about fencing the land the owner answered that he had nothing to say and that he wanted him to keep off his premises.
    2. Tbespass, § 64*—propriety of proceeding to try title to land. The title to land cannot properly be tried in a suit for the criminal offense of trespass.
    D. J. Underwood, H. Anderson and J. W. Jones, for plaintiff in error.
    J. H. Lane, for defendant in error; A. M. Wilson, of counsel.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Presiding Justice Higbee

delivered the opinion of the court.