Case ID: ill-app_209/html/0301-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Presiding Justice Holdom", "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. Isaac Berger, Plaintiff in Error.
    Gen. No. 23,535. (Not to be reported in full.)
    Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. Rurus P. Robinson, Judge, presiding.
    Heard in this court at the October term, 1917.
    Affirmed.
    Opinion filed January 28, 1918.
    Statement of the Case.
    Prosecution by the People of the State of Illinois, plaintiff, against Isaac Berger, defendant, charging defendant with violation of section 57, ch. 38, Rev. St. (J. & A. ¶ 3591), in renting or letting a room or rooms for purposes of prostitution, fornication and lewdness. From a judgment, on trial before the court without a jury, finding defendant guilty and fining him $200, defendant brings error.
    Charles Horgan, for plaintiff in error.
    
      Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Prostitution, § 4
      
      —when evidence warrants conviction of renting rooms for. Evidence held sufficient to sustain a conviction, under an information charging defendant with renting rooms for purposes of prostitution.
    2. Prostitution, § 4*—when evidence of character of inmates of house admissible. Evidence as to the character of certain persons who were inmates of defendant’s house was properly admitted, as tending to show the character of his house as immoral, under an information charging defendant with renting rooms for purposes of prostitution.
    3. Criminal law, § 506*—when evidence presumed to support judgment. Where a criminal case is tried before the court without a jury, the presumption will be indulged on appeal that there is sufficient evidence in the record, unchallenged, to sustain the judgment, and that the court heeded only competent evidence in rendering same, notwithstanding there may have been incompetent evidence.
    4. Criminal law—when denial of further argument proper. Where the trial judge without objection rendered his opinion, on a trial of a criminal case before the court without a jury, and pronounced judgment, going over the crucial questions in the case understandingly, his refusal thereafter to allow further argument was justified and within his rights.
    5. Criminal law, § 553*—when denial of privilege of argument harmless error. Denying to counsel the privilege of argument, on trial of a criminal case before the ■ court without a jury, will not of itself constitute reversible error where the record clearly sustains the judgment.
    Maclay Hoyne, for defendant in error; Edward E. Wilson, of counsel.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Presiding Justice Holdom

delivered the opinion of the court.