The People v. Wagner

Plaintiff in error, Clyde Wagner, was indicted by the grand jury of Madison county at the May term, 1937, for the crime of murder, and upon a plea of guilty was sentenced to the Illinois State penitentiary for a term of one hundred years. He assigns error upon the common-law record, only.

The first point made is that the indictment consists of words and figures contrary to the practice at common law. The matter complained of is the date of the death of the victim, as set out in figures. The strictness of the common law in indictments has long since been abandoned, and the use of figures in the…