The People v. Burns

The defendant, James Burns, was indicted in the criminal court of Cook county for the crime of statutory rape on Betty Marshall on September 12, 1935, she then being fourteen years of age. He was tried by the court without a jury, found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for fourteen years. Burns prosecutes this writ of error for a review of the record.

The defendant resided with his wife, the maternal aunt of the complaining witness, in Chicago. He had been acquainted with the parents of Betty Marshall since his marriage, namely, for more than eleven years, and was a…