Cunningham v. People

• Decision Date: 16 April 1902
• Citation: 195 Ill. 550,63 N.E. 517
• Parties: CUNNINGHAM et al. v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

195 Ill. 550

63 N.E. 517

CUNNINGHAM et al.

v.PEOPLE.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 16, 1902.

Error to criminal court, Cook county; Jesse Holdom, Judge.

John Cunningham and another were convicted of manslaughter, and they bring error. Reversed.

Defendants' requested instruction No. 1 and instruction No. 23 were as follows:

Defendant's instruction 1: ‘You are further instructed, as a matter of law, that the indictment in this case is no evidence, in the slightest degree, but is a mere formal charge, requiring proof of all the material allegations contained therein, by the testimony of witnesses, or by facts and circumstances. And you are further instructed that the law presumes the defendants to be innocent of the crime charged in the indictment, until they have been proven to be guilty beyond all reasonable doubt; and this presumption of innocence is no mere idle theory, to be cast aside by the jury through mere caprice, passion, or prejudice, but it is a substantial part of the law of the land, and follows the defendant throughout the entire case, and must not be lost sight of by the jury until it has been overcome by evidence which establishes the defendant's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt, and to a moral certainty. (Refused.)’

People's instruction No. 14, and marked by the court ‘No. 23’: ‘The court instructs the jury, as a matter of law, that the rule which clothes every person accused of crime with the presumption of innocence, and imposes upon the state the burden of establishing his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, is not intended to aid any one who is in fact guilty of crime to escape, but is a humane provision of the law, intended, so far as human agencies can, to guard against the danger of any innocent person being unjustly punished. (Given.)’

A. J. Hanlon and John Pfeiffer, for plaintiffs in error.

H. J. Hamlin, Atty. Gen., C. S. Deneen, State's Atty., and Harry Olson, Asst. State's Atty., for the People.

BOGGS, J.

An indictment was returned into the criminal court of Cook county, charging the plaintiffs in error, John Cunningham and John Callahan, and two other persons, namely, Harry A. Taylor and Patrick Kane, with the crime of murder, in the killing of one Peter Hartman. Taylor and Kane were not apprehended, but the plaintiffs in error were placed on trial before the court and a jury in said criminal court, and were adjudged guilty of the crime of manslaughter, and condemned to be imprisoned in the state penitentiary at Joliet for an indefinite period. They allege that errors which greatly prejudiced their cause before the jury intervened in the hearing of the cause, and have sued out this writ of error to bring the record of their conviction into review in this court.

The indictment contained five counts, each charging the said plaintiffs in error and said Taylor and Kane with the murder of said Peter Hartman. The state's attorney, however, elected to proceed to trial on the first and fifth counts only. The first count charged the said four parties accomplished the death of said Hartman by ‘striking, beating, pushing, and shoving him’ with their ‘fists.’ The fifth count charged that said indicted parties made an assault upon said Hartman ‘in some way and manner, and by some means, instruments, and weapons, to the grand jurors unknown,’ and killed and murdered him.

The testimony of Hattie Reed and Daisy Drummond was relied upon by the people to show the circumstances of the killing of Hartman, and that of Hattie Reed alone to identify the plaintiffs in error as the parties who took his life. Her ability to know they were the persons who assaulted Hartman, and, in brief, the reliability and value of her identification of the plaintiffs in error as the guilty parties, became of the utmost importance in the investigation before the jury. In the view we have taken of the case, the cause must be again submitted to a jury for trial, and for that reason we shall refrain from commenting upon the testimony, except so far as it may be necessary in passing upon the matters assigned as for error; and nothing here said is intended to reflect the views of this court as to any matter of fact herein involved.

Hattie Reed, a colored woman, testified, in substance, that on Sunday, the 16th day of September, 1900, between the hours of 12 o'clock noon and 1 o'clock p. m., she was employed as a chambermaid in the Kensington Hotel, in the city of Chicago, and was engaged in ‘cleaning up’ one of the rear rooms, on the fourth floor of the building, known as ‘Room No. 48’; that there were two windows in the room, both opening upon the alley which leads north from Harrison to Van Buren street, in the block bounded on the east by State street, on the west by Dearborn street, on the south by Harrison street, and on the north by Van Buren street; that in the room adjoining room No. 48 on the north there was another room of the hotel, which also had a window opening on the alley, from which latter window an iron fire escape led down into the alley; that while the witness was so engaged she testified she heard some one down in the alley cry, ‘Help!’ and she looked from the north window in room No. 48, through the fire escape, into the alley, and saw three persons on the west side of the alley, some 50 feet to the north of her position. She then had no acquaintance with, or had ever seen, either of the plaintiffs in error. Her statements as to what she saw are abstracted as follows: ‘When I looked out of the window, I saw three men. One was sitting against a barrel in the corner; one was sitting on the ground, and had the old man down between his knees; and the other fellow had his hands around the old man's neck, and was choking him. The two men I see here in court. This one [indicating Callahan] had the old man between his knees. He kept his hands around the old man's neck, and this one at the chair was going into the old man's pockets. He took something out of his pocket and put it in his own pocket, but I didn't know what it was. The old man raised up his hands like this, and this man [indicating Cunningham] struck him once beside the head with his fist. After he put his hand in the old man's pocket, they ran down the alley, south. Then the old man got up and started to walk, and he staggered and fell in the middle of the alley. I stayed there until after the patrol wagon came. A crowd gathered, and, before the wagon came, some men picked him up and sat him against a barn door. The old man had on tan shoes, light overcoat, and light hat. Cunningham had on a blue suit, and the other one had on light pants and black coat. When I saw Callahanat the station, he had on a dark suit. The man I saw in the alley had on a light suit. The old man's head was to the north when he fell. When they had his head between the man's Knees, he was facing north, towards Van Buren street,-his back to me. They were there five minutes after I went to the window. Callahan was looking north, and kept that position all the time. He was a settled man,-the man I call the ‘old man.’ I don't know about how old he was. I don't remember whether his hair was gray or not. He had a beard. I don't know what color. I saw his face when he got up. I had a good view of it. There was no blood upon his face. When he first got up, he started towards Van Buren street. I don't know how far he walked before he fell in the middle of the alley. He fell forward on his face. He remained on his face while I was there. Nobody turned him over. I don't know how long he lay there before they picked him up and set him against the wall. I could not recognize the persons who picked him up. I didn't see whether the old man had a mustache or not. I only saw one blow struck with the fist. All the time I saw the men scuffling in the alley, the other two men had their hats on.'

As before stated, the rear of the Kensington Hotel was provided with an iron fire escape. It reached the fourth floor at a window immediately north of that through which the witness Hattie Reed was looking when she saw the occurrences in the alley, 50 feet to the north of her position, and across the alley. The fire escape was composed of iron rods, and supplied with an iron platform at the window. The floor of the platform was not solid, but there were small holes through it. The platform extended to within 6 or 8 inches of the north side of the window at which the witness Hattie Reed stood, and at the same level as the bottom of the window. As to the obstruction to her view caused by this fire escape, the witness stated: ‘There is a fire escape just north of the middle window, between me and the point I was looking toward at the time. I was looking to the right,-north. I was looking through the fire escape. The fire escape extends from the top floor of the building to the first floor above the ground. The three men were on the west side of the alley, about fifty feet north of my window.’ As further bearing upon her ability to recognize the plaintiffs in error, she further testified: ‘About a half an hour after the patrol wagon took the body of the old man away, the same two boys came back into the alley again, and were inquiring what had taken place. They were pretty close to the man they spoke to, and just asked, ‘What had occurred?’ They were standing right under my window. They didn't speak very loud when they asked the man the question. I was on the fourth floor of the building. I heard what they said. They were right under my window all the time. I saw their faces. They heard me talking, and looked up. I was talking to Daisy Drummond. She was looking out of the window under mine when the two men came back, and I was talking to her at the time. She was on the first floor of the hotel. I said to Daisy, ‘There are the same two men, and, if I saw an officer, I would tell him to take them.’' Daisy Drummond denied that the conversation detailed by the colored woman, Hattie Reed,...