Coughlin v. People

• Decision Date: 19 January 1893
• Citation: 33 N.E. 1,144 Ill. 140
• Parties: COUGHLIN v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

144 Ill. 140

33 N.E. 1

COUGHLIN

v.PEOPLE.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 19, 1893.

Error to criminal court, Cook county; Samuel P. McConnell, Judge.

Indictment of Daniel Coughlin for murder. Defendant was convicted, and he appeals. Reversed.

Magruder and Scholfield, JJ., dissenting.

W. S. Forrest, R. M. Wing, and Daniel Donahoe, for appellant.

George Hunt, Atty. Gen., for the People.

BAILEY, C. J.

On the 29th day of June 1889, an indictment was presented in the criminal court of Cook county by the grand jury against Daniel Coughlin, Martin Burke, John F. Beggs, Patrick O'Sullivan, Frank J. Woodruff, Patrick Cooney, and John Kunze, charging them and divers other persons to the grand jury unknown with having conspired to kill and murder Patrick Henry Cronin; and that, in pursuance of such conspiracy, they did kill and murder said Cronin. At the August term, 1889, of said court, Coughlin Burke, O'Sullivan, Beggs, and Kunze were tried on the indictment, and at such trial Beggs was acquitted, Kunze was found guilty of manslaughter, and his punishment was fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for the term of three years, and Coughlin, Burke, and O'Sullivan were each found guilty of murder, and their punishment was fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for the terms of their natural lives. The verdict, as to Kunze, was set aside by the court, and a new trial was awarded, and Coughlin, Burke, and O'Sullivan were each sentenced to imprisonment for life, in accordance with the verdict. To obtain a reversal of the sentence as to himself, O'Sullivan sued out a writ of error from this court, returnable to the October term, 1890, and the cause thus brought here for review was submitted to this court on the printed arguments of counsel at the March term, 1891. Afterwards, and before the announcement of our decision, O'Sullivan died, and thereby, as we held, in denying a motion by his administrator to enter judgment nunc pro tunc as of a date prior to his death, his writ of error was abated. O'Sullivan v. People, 32 N. E. Rep. 192. Coughlin has now sued out a writ of error returnable to the October term, 1892, of this court, and has assigned numerous errors, and the cause thus presented, having been submitted on the briefs and arguments of counsel, is now before us for decision.

A brief statement of the facts surrounding the homicide, and of the circumstances under which it is supposed to have been committed, so far as they were disclosed at the trial, will be necessary to a proper understanding of the questions raised by the assignments of error. On and prior to May 4, 1889, Patrick Henry Cronin was a physician and surgeon, and was residing and having his principal office at No. 486 North Clark street, Chicago, and was engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery. He also had a down-town office in the Chicago Opera House building, on the corner of Clark and Washington streets; that being about one and one half miles south of his residence. At about 7:30 o'clock P. M. of May 4, 1889, a stranger, driving a horse and buggy, called at 486 North Clark street for Dr. Cronin, and presented a business card of Patrick O'Sullivan, who was an ice dealer, and said that one of O'Sullivan's men had been seriously injured, and asked Dr. Cronin to go at once to render him professional assistance. The man who thus called seemed to be in haste, and Dr. Cronin thereupon hurriedly collected his utensils, bandages, cotton, and such other materials as he supposed might be needed, and got into the buggy with the stranger, and was by him driven away rapidly in a northerly direction, towards the ice house and residence of O'Sullivan. That was the last time Dr. Cronin was seen alive by any of his friends, so far as is known. His body was found in a high state of decomposition on the 22d day of May, 1889, in the catch-basin of a sewer, in the north part of the city, several miles north of O'Sullivan's residence. The evidence tending to connect Coughlin and his codefendants with the homicide is purely circumstantial. The theory of the prosecution is that Dr. Cronin was put to death in pursuance of a conspiracy to take his life, entered into by the defendants and other parties who are unknown; that, to accomplish the objects of such conspiracy, he was induced in the manner already indicated to go to a house near O'Sullivan's residence, known as the ‘Carlson Cottage,’ on pretense that the person who had been injured, and who needed his professional services, was there; that he was there met by all or a portion of the conspirators, and murdered, and that his body was thereupon taken by those who had put him to death and deposited in the catchbasin where it was afterwards discovered. It appears that Dr. Cronin and all the defendants who were tried, except Kunze, were natives of Ireland, or of Irish descent, and were members of an organization composed exclusively of persons of Irish nativity or descent, known as the ‘United Brotherhood,’ and commonly called the ‘Clan-na-Gael.’ According to the theory upon which the defendants were tried, as such theory was outlined by the state's attorney in his opening statement to the jury, the ‘United Brotherhood’ was a secret, oath-bound organization having a membership and subordinate bodies in all parts of the country; that the objects for which it was formed and kept in existence were to assist, by force of arms or otherwise, in freeing Ireland from its dependence upon the government of Great Britain and in securing its national independence; that, for the purpose of concealing its real purposes from the public, its subordinate bodies or ‘camps' were called and generally known as literary societies; that the affairs of the organization were directed by an executive committee, that committee being originally composed of members from each district, but that at a meeting of the organization held in Chicago in 1881 the executive committee was reduced to five members; that this executive board had the power to command, and that no member had a right to disobey, and that whatever it commanded the members were required to do; that the members were required by their oath and by the laws of the organization to obey the executive committee, even in defiance of the government or any other authority; that three certain members of the executive committee, who constituted the majority, assumed control of the organization; that from year to year large sums of money were raised to be used for the purpose of securing the independence of Ireland, which came into their hands; that these three men, after assuming supreme control of the organization, adopted and put in force a line of policy which was disapproved by a considerable portion of the membership, and that dissatisfaction arose in relation to the accounts given by them of the society funds, and that thereupon a serious division arose in the organization, Dr. Cronin being one of the leaders of the opposition; that, in consequence of his opposition to the three men in control of the organization, and popularly known as the ‘Triangle,’ and of his efforts to subject them to discipline, a bitter feeling was created between him and them, which extended to the membership of the organization, and, among others, to Camp 20, of which Coughlin, Burke, and O'Sullivan were members; that Dr. Cronin was denounced as a traitor, and a British spy, and that at a meeting of Camp 20 a committee, of which defendant Coughlin was a member, was appointed to try him, and that such committee afterwards tried him, and ordered that he be put to death, and that his death followed in execution of that order. We have deemed it necessary, in view of questions which will be hereafter discussed, to state thus far the theory of the prosecution in relation to the complicity of the ‘United Brotherhood,’ and especially of the members of Camp 20, in the alleged conspiracy to take the life of Dr. Cronin, as detailed by the state's attorney in his opening statement to the jury, although very little, if any, evidence was given at the trial to support it. There seems to have been an entire failure to prove that any committee was appointed by Camp 20 to try Dr. Cronin, or that defendant Coughlin was a member of a committee appointed for that purpose, or that Dr. Cronin was ever tried or condemned by such committee, or that any such proceedings as those alleged were had in Camp 20, looking to his accusation, trial, or condemnation. There is evidence tending the show that at a meeting of Camp 20, held February 8, 1889, Coughlin made a motion for the appointment by the senior guardian of a committee of three, and that on his motion defendant Beggs, who was then senior guardian, appointed Coughlin, Burke, and O'Sullivan; but it does not appear that such committee was appointed for the trial of Dr. Cronin, but the evidence seems to indicate that it was appointed for an entirely different purpose.

The principal facts, in addition to those above stated, which the evidence tends to show, and which are relied upon to establish the defendant's guilt, are these: On the 20th day of February, 1889, one J. B. Symonds rented rooms at 117 South Clark street, directly across the street from Dr. Cronin's down-town office, and on the following day purchased furniture, a carpet, a valise, a trunk, and a trunk strap, which were delivered to him at the rooms which he had rented. On the 20th day of March, 1889, defendant Burke, under the name of Frank Williams, rented a cottage situated in the immediate vicinity of O'Sullivan's residence, owned by Jonas Carlson, and spoken of by the witnesses as the ‘Carlson Cottage.’ Burke, immediately after leasing the cottage, went to O'Sullivan's house, and had a conversation with him, in which he was overheard by Carlson to say, ‘The cottage is rented.’ A day or two afterwards, Burke and an unknown man removed the furniture, carpet, trunk, etc., from the rooms at 117 ...