People v. Crump
| Decision Date | 20 November 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 34225,34225 |
| Citation | 12 Ill.2d 402,147 N.E.2d 76 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Paul CRUMP, Plaintiff in Error. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
George N. Leighton, Chicago, for plaintiff in error.
Latham Castle, Atty. Gen., and Benjamin S. Adamowski, State's Atty., Chicago, (Fred G. Leach, Decatur, Bruce E. Kaufman, Springfield, L. Louis Karton, John T. Gallagher, and Robert Cooney, Chicago, of counsel), for the People.
This case is again here on a writ of error to the criminal court of Cook County to review a trial wherein Paul Crump was found guilty of murder, his punishment being fixed at death. Paul Crump, David Taylor, Eugene Taylor, Harold Riggins, and Hudson Tillman were jointly indicted and tried for murder of one Theodore P. Zukowski who was shot and killed on March 20, 1953, while serving as plant guard at the Libby, McNeill & Libby packing plant in the city of Chicago. With the exception of Tillman, on the first trial each of the defendants was found guilty. Crump's punishment was fixed at death and the others 199 years imprisonment in the penitentiary. Tillman, who was granted a severance, testified for the State on the first trial but did not do so on the second. In People v. Crump, 5 Ill.2d 251, 125 N.E.2d 615, 52 A.L.R.2d 834, we reversed and remanded for a second hearing, predicating the result principally upon the ground that Tillman was notoriously a drug addict and the defense was precluded from developing that fact on cross-examination. It was contended that habitual users of opium are unreliable witnesses, thus Tillman's credibility would have been adversely affected if such proof had been allowed. This denial was held highly prejudicial.
We shall refer to Paul Crump in this opinion as the defendant. The record of this trial contains more than 1800 pages, and since our prior opinion contains a fairly complete account of what happened at the Libby, McNeill & Libby plant on March 20, 1953, we will omit all facts that are not pertinent to the legal issues here under consideration.
There have been assigned and argued many errors which the defendant contends justify a reversal. Much emphasis is placed on the alleged error committed by the trial court in failing to hold that People's exhibits 22 and 23, defendant's written confessions, were improperly obtained. It is urged that they are the product of oppressive, unfair and illegal conduct on the part of the prosecuting officials, thereby depriving defendant of rights guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States.
It was on the evening of the same day Zukowski was killed that defendant was first arrested. Only accidentally was he picked up and questioned about several crimes. Three days later, after having allegedly been brutally mistreated, he confessed to nothing and was released.
Shortly thereafter Hudson Tillman surrendered himself to the sheriff of Cook County, and he then made a complete confession implicating all of the defendants named in the original indictment. On March 26, at about 3:00 A.M., ten police officers of the city of Chicago came into Crump's home and arrested him.
After being questioned for about nine hours, Crump and Taylor, at 1:30 P.M. on March 26, 1953, admitted their involvement in the Libby holdup in the presence of Richard Austin, First Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County, Irwin Bloch, Assistant State's Attorney, Chief J. T. O'Malley, Chief of Detectives, Capt. Frank Reynolds, 18th district, and several others. The question and answer interrogation taken by the court reporter embraces 25 pages in the abstract. This statement contained in much detail the facts involved in the planning and execution of the crime in question and their subsequent escape.
These are a few of the details elicited: Defendant had previously worked at the Libby, McNeill & Libby plant and knew of their practices of handling payrolls on each Friday; the defendant planned the robbery about two weeks before its occurrence while he was gathered with a few of his confederates in a lounge on Forty-third Street; the defendant had no weapon of his own but he prevailed upon Hudson Tillman to supply the guns, which he did, consisting of a .32 revolver, .38 pistol and a sawedoff shot gun; it was arranged for the five to meet at 10:30 A.M. on March 20 under the L Station on Forty-third Street in Chicago and proceed to the plant in Harold Riggins's red Oldsmobile car; it was planned for Riggins to remain outside in his car and return to the plant at approximately 11:05 A.M.; the defendant led the procession into the plant for he was familiar with the operations, he struck the guard with a barrel of a shot gun and using the guard's revolver as well as his own, shot the guard Zukowski four times, causing his death; Tillman obtained the satchel and box containing the money; defendant Taylor, and Tillman wore blue hoods with two eyeholes that were made by the defendant from cloth purchased some place on Forty-third Street; the three participants wore rubber gloves that had been purchased at a drug store on Forty-third Street; the defendant went out another door than the one where Riggins was to appear so the defendant boarded a street car and went to the lake at Fifty-first Street where he threw his revolver in Lake Michigan 'as far as I could possibly throw it.'
Of considerable significance is the fact that the officers found the revolver at the place designated by the defendant. Of more than passing relevance is the fact that the inquiring officers asked the defendant about a grey felt hat, size 7, Dobbs make, bearing the name of J. G. Tobias, 2403 W. Madison Street, Chicago. Defendant said it was his hat that he wore on the day of the robbery and that it was lost in flight. In placing the hat upon his head, it was found that it fit him. The mask and gloves also found in the path of defendant's departure were identified by him.
It was developed that People's exhibit 22 contained some inaccuracies. These minor discrepancies were ironed out so that People's exhibit 23 was prepared containing the final draft of what was agreed to be the truth. This document was signed on March 28, 1953, in the office of the State's Attorney of Cook County. Four civic leaders had been invited to witness this ceremony. Mrs. L. Robert Mellin was one of the four. It appears that she was a member of the board of education of the city of Chicago, and that her appointment was the result of endorsements of the leading clubs and civic groups of Chicago. She testified that the statements were read aloud by Mr. Austin and Mr. Bloch and that after defendant signed the statement she affixed her signature; that neither Paul Crump nor anyone else made any complaint to her, Mr. Austin or anybody else; that when Paul Crump was asked if he had been mistreated or abused they said
An examination of his testimony on the trial, however,...
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