People v. Jennings

• Decision Date: 21 December 1911
• Parties: PEOPLE v. JENNINGS.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

252 Ill. 534

96 N.E. 1077

PEOPLE

v.JENNINGS.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 21, 1911.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Marcus Kavanagh, Judge.

Thomas Jennings was convicted of murder, and he brings error. Affirmed.William G. Anderson and F. L. Barnett, for plaintiff in error.

W. H. Stead, Atty. Gen., and John E. W. Wayman, State's Atty. (John E. Northrup, of counsel), for the People.

CARTER, C. J.

Plaintiff in error, Thomas Jennings, was found guilty in the criminal court of Cook county of the murder of Clarence B. Hiller, the jury fixing the penalty at death and judgment being entered on the verdict February 1, 1911. This writ of error is sued out to review the record in that case.

The errors assigned are in reference to two questions: First, the introduction of evidence of other distinct offenses alleged to have been committed by plaintiff in error; and second, the admission of evidence as to finger prints.

At the time of the murder, September 19, 1910, Clarence B. Hiller, with his wife and four children, lived in a two-story frame house facing north on West 104th street, just east of Waldon parkway, in Chicago. Immediately west of Waldon parkway, which runs north and south, and separated from the street by a wire fence, are the suburban tracks of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company. East of the Hiller house was a vacant lot, and east of that was the residence of a family named Pickens. South of the Hiller house was a vacant space, beyond which were two houses facing west on Waldon parkway, the southern one being occupied by the McNabb family. The north or front door of the Hiller house leads into a hallway on the east side of the house and from the south end or rear of this hallway a stairway leads up to the second floor. The south bedroom nearest the head of the stairs was occupied by the daughter Florence, 1o years of age. Then came the bedroom of the daughter Clarice, 15 years of age, and at the north or front end of the second floor was a bedroom occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Hiller and the two younger children. At the head of the stairs, near the door leading to Florence's room, a gas light was kept burning at night. Shortly after 2 o'clock on Monday morning of September 19, 1910, Mrs. Hiller was awakened and noticed that this light was out. She called her husband's attention to the fact and he went in his night clothes to the head of the stairway, where he encountered an intruder, with whom he grappled, and in the struggle both fell to the foot of the stairway, where Hiller was shot twice, dying in a few moments. Just a little before the shooting the daughter Clarice had seen the form of a man at her doorway holding a lighted match by his body, but not so as to show his face. As it was the practice of her father to get up and see if the children were all right in the night she was not frightened. The form disappeared from her doorway, and she heard footsteps shuffling toward the room of her sister Florence, after which she heard a little sound made by Florence. She next heard her father going through the hallway. Then came the struggle and the shooting. Florence was awakened by somebody on her bed whom she supposed was her little brother, and she asked, ‘Is that you, Gerald?’ No reply being made, she asked, ‘Who is this?’ and a man's voice—not her father's—answered, ‘It is me.’ She testified that she tried to scream but was unable to do so; that the man pushed up her nightgown and felt of her bare limbs and body; that he also placed his prickly cheek upon her face and moved about in various ways upon the bed. The stranger then hurried out and met the father. The Pickens family were awakened by the screams of Mrs. Hiller and her children, and the father, John C. Pickens, partially dressed and ran to the Hiller house. He reached there at about the same time as his son, Oliver Pickens, and Officer Beardsley. The son had been visiting friends on the north side in Chicago and had left the train at the suburban station,about a block away, and was walking towards home when he heard the screams from the Hiller house and ran there, meeting a police officer, Floyd Beardsley, who had also heard the screams and was searching for the cause. They were let in by the daughter Clarice, and found the body of Mr. Hiller lying near the bottom of the stairway, his nightgown saturated with blood. The shooting occurred about 2:25 a. m. The witnesses who reached the house shortly after found three revolver cartridges undischarged and two leaden slugs. Neither of the shots fired had lodged in the body of the deceased, one entering the upper part of the left arm and passing out through the shoulder and neck, and the other entering the right breast and passing out through the lung and heart. Shortly thereafter Mrs. Pickens, going upstairs to get a cover for the body, found particles of sand and gravel on Florence's bed near the foot.

About three-quarters of a mile east of the Hiller house is Vincennes road, running southerly, with a slight inclination to the west, and which is occupied by a street car line. This street is intersected at 103d street by the tracks of the Panhandle railroad, which run southerly, with a slight inclination to the east. The street car line connects with the Chicago City Railway system at Seventy-Ninth street, and extends in a southerly direction from 103d street through Blue Island to Harvey, about 8 1/2 miles south of 103d street. On the west of Vincennes road, at 103d street, is a crossing gate. Early in the morning on which the murder occurred, four police officers, who shortly before had gone off duty in that neighborhood, were sitting on a bench just north of the gate, waiting for a north-bound street car. The gate was up, so that the officers were not easily seen by one approaching from the south. About 2:38 a. m., Jennings approached the place from the south. The officers spoke to him, and he continued walking for a few steps with his right hand in his trousers pocket, holding a loaded revolver. They searched him and took the weapon away. The did not know at this time of the murder. Jennings was perspiring, and the officers testified that fresh blood appeared at different places on his clothing. About three inches above his left wrist they found a slight wound, fresh and bleeding slightly. Jennings told the policemen that the blood came from a wound on his left little finger, received from falling off the street car at Seventy-Ninth street the evening before, when he was on his way to Harvey. Dr. Clement, who examined Jennings about half-past 3 that morning at the police station, found the wound on the little finger scabbed over and not of recent origin. He also found the wound on the left arm fresh and bleeding, clean cut, with recent blood coming from it, not coagulated. The doctor testified that it looked like a bullet wound and not like an injury received from falling off a street car. Dr. Springer also examined Jennings, and his testimony, so far as it covered the same ground, was practically to the same effect. It was testified that the holes in the sleeves of the shirts, which were introduced in evidence as exhibits, were continuous with this fresh cut in the arm. The officers took Jennings to the station on the street cars, and when examined there, sand was found in his shoes. Jennings, when arrested, first told the officers that he lived at 1244 State street, Chicago, and later 577 Twelfth street; that he left for Harvey about 7 or 8 o'clock the evening before to visit friends, and that when he started to return from Harvey, about 12 o'clock, not finding a street car, he had walked back to that point.

In August, 1910, Jennings had been released on parole from the penitentiary at Joliet, where he had been sentenced on a charge of burglary. He had been paroled before, but had been returned for a violation of the parole. Two weeks after his second parole, on August 16, 1910, he purchased a new 38 caliber revolver, giving his name as Will Jones, of Peoria. On September 9th following he had pawned this revolver for $2 under the name of Will Jackson, getting it back September 16th. On the 18th he pawned it to Elroy Jones, a saloonkeeper, getting it back about 7:00 p. m. on the night of September 18, 1910. It was this revolver that the officers found on Jennings' person when he was arrested. It was loaded with five cartridges, which were marked, ‘A. P. C. 38 Smith & Wesson.’ The testimony showed that these cartridges were identical in appearance, size and markings with the three undischarged cartridges found in the hallway of the Hiller house near the dead body. Jennings testified that he had not fired the revolver since he owned it and knew of no one else firing it. The officers testified that in their judgment it had been fired twice within an hour before his arrest, arriving at this conclusion from the smell of fresh smoke and the burned powder in two chambers of the cylinder. Later, chemical tests and the evidence of a gunsmith corroborated this testimony that the chambers contained burned particles of powder.

Over the objection of the plaintiff in error evidence was admitted to the effect that about 2:00 a. m. September 19, 1910, just before the shooting of Hiller, some one entered the McNabb house. Mrs. McNabb was awakened and saw a man standing in the door with a lighted match over his head. The man was tall, broad shouldered, and very dark. He came over to her and placed his hand on her shoulder twice, then put his hand under her clothes against her bare body. She kept shoving his hand away, and cried out, ‘What is the matter?’ The man did not reply, but went to the dresser and stood there a minute and then went down the stairs. Jessie McNabb, a daughter, who occupied the same bed with her mother, was awakened and saw the intruder. She testified he wore a light-colored shirt and figured suspenders; that he was large, with broad shoulders. From...