{
  "id": 2620356,
  "name": "The People, Defendant in Error, v. Paul Zito et al., Plaintiffs in Error",
  "name_abbreviation": "People v. Zito",
  "decision_date": "1908-06-11",
  "docket_number": "Gen. No. 13,873",
  "first_page": "534",
  "last_page": "536",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "141 Ill. App. 534"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.",
    "id": 8837,
    "name": "Illinois Appellate Court"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 29,
    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
  },
  "cites_to": [
    {
      "cite": "140 Ill. App. 611",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "Ill. App.",
      "case_ids": [
        2615652
      ],
      "opinion_index": 0,
      "case_paths": [
        "/ill-app/140/0611-01"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "analysis": {
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    "simhash": "1:239a54e6a29ee68b",
    "word_count": 704
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T15:54:49.661155+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "The People, Defendant in Error, v. Paul Zito et al., Plaintiffs in Error."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Mr. Justice Brown\ndelivered the opinion of the-court.\nThe judgment which it is sought here to reverse on writ of error was rendered by the Municipal Court on the verdict of a jury which found the plaintiffs in error, Frank and Paul Zito, guilty of selling cocaine in violation of sections 32 A and 32 B. of chapter 91 of the Laws of the State of Illinois, and fixed the penalty at a fine of one hundred dollars.\nThere are some questions raised by this record which have been decided by us in favor of the People, in another writ of error sued out by the same parties to reverse another judgment of the same nature. 140 Ill. App. 611.\nBut we cannot allow this conviction and judgment to stand. The charge against the defendants was selling cocaine. The sale proven was of a package of Dr. Gray\u2019s Catarrh Powder, an alleged proprietary medicinal preparation. An analytical chemist was placed on the stand by the people, to prove that his analysis of the contents of the package sold showed that it contained cocaine. He testified that he found cocaine in the contents mixed with other substances. The counsel for defendant then undertook to cross-examine him, asking him first how he came to that opinion. Thereupon the court said to the witness: \u201cYou need not describe the process.\u201d Counsel for defendant said, \u201cI believe I am entitled to go into the process. \u2019 \u2019 The court: \u2018 \u2018 Save your exception; ask another question.\u201d Then counsel asked the witness whether the proportion of cocaine to other substances was over' 50 per cent. Objection to that question was sustained by the court. Counsel then said to the court: \u201cI wish the permission of the court to ask the chemist particularly the amount of his examination so as to determine whether he is capable from such examination, to find the presence of the cocaine.\u201d This colloquy followed:\n\u201cThe Court: Do you state as an attorney that you would know when he got through?\nCounsel: I certainly would know whether he would know or not.\nThe Court: Have you a chemist here?\nCounsel: No.\u201d\nWhereupon the court refused to allow counsel to go into the cross-examination he proposed.\nUndoubtedly very wide discretion, as the counsel for the people urge, is given to a trial judge' in limiting and controlling cross-examinations. But this matter, which the defendants\u2019 counsel wished to inquire into, was the very gist and kernel of the case against them, and practically no cross-examination whatever was allowed. No lawyer would have been doing tiis duty to his clients who did not in such a case attempt it, and we are at a loss to understand why the right to it was denied. Of all witnesses experts are those of whom the most searching cross-e'xamination should be permitted.\nIf this ruling of the Municipal Court is an error \u201cin respect to a matter of practice therein,\u201d, it falls within the proviso of the eighth paragraph of section 23 of the Municipal Court Act, which allows us to grant relief from any error of the Municipal Court in respect to a matter of practice therein in any case where in our opinion such relief is necessary to prevent a failure of justice.\nWe do not think the defendants had a fair trial, and we reverse the judgment against both and each of the defendants and remand the cause to the Municipal Court.\nReversed and remanded.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Mr. Justice Brown"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "William Schbeider, for plaintiffs in error,",
      "E. I. Frankhauser, for defendants in error."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "The People, Defendant in Error, v. Paul Zito et al., Plaintiffs in Error.\nGen. No. 13,873.\nEvidence\u2014when cross-examination unduly restricted. In a prosecution for the illegal sale of cocaine, it is error for the trial judge to restrict the defendants\u2019 counsel in his cross-examination of a chemist who has testified to an analysis of the proprietary medicine alleged td have been sold and by so doing prevent him from showing the processes by which such chemist reached his conclusion.\nAction in debt. Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. Judson F. Gomo, Judge, presiding.\nHeard in this court at the October term, 1907.\nReversed and remanded.\nOpinion filed June 11, 1908.\nWilliam Schbeider, for plaintiffs in error,\nE. I. Frankhauser, for defendants in error."
  },
  "file_name": "0534-01",
  "first_page_order": 568,
  "last_page_order": 570
}