People v. Enright

Decision Date05 December 1912
PartiesPEOPLE v. ENRIGHT.
CourtIllinois Supreme Court

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; William M. McSurely, Judge.

Maurice Enright was convicted of murder, and he brings error. Affirmed.James G. Brady and Francis W. Walker, both of Chicago (William S. Forrest, of Chicago, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

W. H. Stead, Atty. Gen., and John E. W. Wayman, State's Atty., of Chicago (John E. Northup, Thomas Marshall, E. C. Hall, Robert E. Crowe, and F. L. Fairbank, all of Chicago, for the people.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

Vincent Altman was murdered while standing at the bar in the saloon of the Briggs House, in Chicago, at 1:30 o'clock in the afternoon of March 22, 1911. The assassin shot him twice. One 38-caliber bullet, which was found, entered the right side and lodged in the liver. The other shot was in the back, and the bullet was left in the body and never found. Maurice Enright, the plaintiff in error, was indicted in the criminal court of Cook county for the crime, and was found guilty by a jury, which fixed his punishment at life imprisonment, and the court sentenced him on the verdict.

The Briggs House is a hotel at the northeast corner of Randolph street and Fifth avenue. The saloon is in the southwest corner, on the first floor, and the room is about 45 feet long north and south. There are three doors-one at the corner of the two streets, another at the northwest corner, opening on Fifth avenue, and the third at the northeast corner, leading through a passageway to the west lobby of the hotel. The bar is on the east side, and is 32 feet long, and extends from a cigar case near the south end of the room to within 11 or 12 feet of the north end, where it turns at right angles to the east wall of the room, with a hinged shelf for an entrance behind the bar. At the center, and behind the bar, is a cashier's desk somewhat above the bar, and the cashier faces the customers. At the north end of the room there are three booths-one for the telephone and the others for other purposes-and on the west side of the room are three open booths, with a table and seats in each. North of these booths there is a stairway next the west wall, leading down to the dining room in the basement, with a wooden partition on the east side of the stairway and a lunch counter in front of the partition. The space between the bar and the open booths and lunch counter is about 8 feet. The west lobby, into which the passageway from the saloon opens, has an entrance on Fifth avenue and extends east to the main lobby, which runs north and south, with the main south entrance and the ladies' entrance on Randolph street, between which two entrances there is a haberdasher's store. The west lobby is about 16 feet wide north and south and 35 feet long east and west, and on the south side, west of the doorway from the saloon, is a stenographer's desk. On the north side, opposite the doorway, is the door of a fiorist's store, and extending east from that door along the north side to the main lobby is a magazine and cigar stand, opposite which there are three writing desks. The elevator is in the main lobby, at the north end of the haberdasher's store, with a north entrance. About 5 feet north from the entrance to the elevator a stairway rises to the west, and about half way up turns to the south, and runs east to the second floor, opposite the elevator. At the time of the murder the headquarters of Carter H. Harrison, candidate for mayor of Chicago, occupied the entire second floor and other rooms on other floors, with headquarters of about every known nationality in different rooms, and the lobbies and headquarters were crowded with people. Room 508, on the fifth floor, was occupied by a committee of the local union of the United Association of Steam Fitters and Plumber, including Simon O'Donnell, Thomas Kearney, and James Garvin, and the defendant was the business agent for that union, and was frequently in and about that room. He was in that room up to the noon hour of the day of the murder. At the time he was shot Altman was standing about the middle of the bar, which was crowded with men standing in front of its entire length and some feet out from it. There were from 40 to 60 men in the room, and the whole room was filled. The man who killed Altman wore a gray overcoat and a black hat, and, so far as appears from the testimony,there was but one man in the room dressed in that way. John J. Brittain, a general contractor, who was standing near the north passageway into the west lobby, caught and held for a few moments a man wearing such an overcoat and hat who was rushing out of the room. The man either got away from him or was let go, and ran into the west lobby. He then turned toward the main lobby, and was caught and held near the cigar stand by Gary S. Troy, a salesman for an automobile company. The man said, ‘For God's sake, let me go!’ and Troy let him go. He ran around in the main lobby and up the stairs.

There is no reasonable doubt that the man who killed Altman is the one with whom Brittain and Troy grappled and who ran around the main lobby and up the stairs. The direct evidence that that man was the defendant is as follows: Fred H. Irish testified that he was in the saloon, a few a feet from Altman, and heard the two shots in quick succession, and saw the man who fired them, that the man went out through the lobby of the hotel, and that he was the defendant, Maurice Enright. Arnold Warner, a bell boy at the hotel, who knew the defendant and had waited on the men in room 508 and served drinks to them, testified that he was standing in the door of the florist's store, in the west lobby; that he heard two shots fired, and turned around and went to the barroom door; that he saw Brittain holding the defendant, Enright, from behind; that the defendant said, ‘Brittain, for Christ's sake, John, let me go!’ and Brittain let him go; that the defendant then ran by Troy, who was standing by the cigar case; that the defendant said something to Troy which the witness could not make out, and Troy let him go; that he ran up the stairway and tripped when he came near the top of the stairs, and that when he ran through the lobby he put a gun in his pocket. Norman Goldstein, another bell boy who worked at the Briggs House and who was acquainted with the defendant, testified that he was near the middle of the magazine stand, about 12 feet from the entrance to the saloon; that he heard the shots fired, and the crowd came running out of the door; that he was pushed down, and when he was getting up saw a man holding the defendant; that he afterwards learned that the name of the man holding the defendant was Troy; that the defendant tried to get away from Troy; that Troy held him not more than five or ten seconds, and after Troy let him go he ran toward the main lobby. Troy testified to catching the man who ran out of the saloon, and identified the defendant as the man. William Barnett, the elevator conductor, observed the commotion at the time of the shooting, and testified that he took the defendant on the elevator at the second floor, that he came from toward the stairway, and that the witness knew him and had taken him up in the elevator several times. All these witnesses said that he wore a gray overcoat and a black hat.

Several witnesses testified that the defendant was not the man that did the shooting. John J. Brittain, who caught and held the man, testified that at the firing of the first shot he turned around toward the bar; that the man broke away from where the shot was fired, and ran toward the witness and he grabbed him; that they struggled afterward to a point in the passageway, where he let him go; that the man he took hold of was not the defendant, and that the man said, ‘There he goes! Out the other door!’ and the witness let go of the man, and ran toward Fifth avenue to catch the other man. According to this witness he caught the right man, and let him go to run after some unknown person on the suggestion of the criminal. Morgan J. Gragin, a steam-heating contractor, testified that he saw the man that did the shooting; that he did not know what became of him, because the witness ducked out of the front door after the shot, and when the defendant stood up at the trial the witness said that he was not the man. William O'Brien, a cigar salesman, said that he heard the shots, saw the flash of fire, and saw the man from whom the flash appeared to come; that he looked at the defendant when he came into court, and that he was not the man. Harry Hall, the cashier in the saloon, said that he heard the shots and looked up, but did not see the defendant around that day, and that he was not in the barroom to his knowledge. Michael Freeman, the manager of the saloon, testified that he was standing at the north end of the saloon, close to the lunch counter, when the shooting occurred; that he looked around and saw a man with a gun in his hand; that the witness ran into the lobby when he heard the shots fired; and that the man who held the gun was not the defendant. John S. Kelly, who was in the plumbing business, could not say that he saw the man that shot Altman, but immediately after the shooting a man who was standing with Altman ran by the witness and was sticking a revolver in his coat pocket, and the defendant was not in the saloon. William H. Ehmann was assistant sheriff at the time of the trial, having received his appointment some months after the murder. He testified that he was standing at the hinged shelf, at the north end of the bar; that he saw the man that did the shooting pull a revolver and heard the shots fired; that he did not know where the man went who fired the shots; that the first time he saw the defendant was in the county jail; and that he backed out as soon as he could, and was one of the first ones out. This witness, according to his own...

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