Case ID: ill-app_187/html/0243-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Mr. Justice McSurely", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

City of Chicago, Plaintiff in Error, v. Fred D. Jackson, Defendant in Error.
    Gen. No. 19,476.
    Municipal corporations, § 857
      
      —when exhibiting picture not a violation of ordinance. Exhibiting in show windows a copy of a painting named “September Morn,” held not to constitute a violation of an ordinance forbidding the exhibition of any “indecent or lewd” picture.
    Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. John J. Rooney, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the October term, 1913.
    Affirmed.
    Opinion filed May 25, 1914.
    William H. Sexton and Alexander E. Arkin, for plaintiff in error; Charles M. Haft, of counsel.
    Fred D. Jackson, pro se.
    
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Justice McSurely

delivered the opinion of the court.

The City charges that the defendant by exhibiting in his show windows a copy of the painting by Paul Chabas, named “September Morn,” violated the section of the Municipal Code which forbids the exhibiting of any “indecent or lewd” picture. Upon trial a jury acquitted the defendant.

Complaint is made of rulings on objections to questions, and on the admissibility of testimony, which we shall not discuss, as our opinion on these points would not alter our conclusion that no other verdict than that returned should stand. This conclusion follows an inspection of the picture, which is an exhibit before us. It is not indecent, although this may not be said of much of the exploiting of it. It does not come within the interdiction of the ordinance, and the judgment is affirmed.

Affirmed.