Garmon v. People
| Decision Date | 25 October 1966 |
| Docket Number | Gen. No. 66--84 |
| Citation | 221 N.E.2d 320,76 Ill.App.2d 24 |
| Parties | Odis GARMON, Defendant-Appellant, v. PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Henry A. Schwarz, O'Fallon, for appellant.
John M. Karns, Jr., State's Atty., Harold M. Jennings, Asst. State's Atty., Belleville, William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Springfield, for appellee.
This is an appeal by the defendant, Odis Garmon, who was found and adjudged guilty of the crime of murder and sentenced to a term of years not less than 199 nor more than 200 in the penitentiary. The appeal was originally filed in the Illinois Supreme Court and transferred therefrom to this Court on Order of the Illinois Supreme Court finding that the issues raised by defendant-appellant's brief present no constitutional question.
Defendant sets forth two grounds for reversal, namely: (1) that the evidence presented was insufficient to justify a finding of guilty on the crime of murder in that it was insufficient as to the proof of the cause of death, and (2) that the People did not prove the age of the defendant by sufficient evidence as to justify the jury's finding of defendant's age.
Defendant's first contention is based on the alleged inadequacy of the testimony of the coroner, a medical doctor, who was not qualified as an expert, as to the cause of the death of the victim, Vida Burns. At no time were objections made to the qualifications of the coroner, nor was any motion made to strike his testimony.
The People presented uncontradicted evidence, that the defendant and the decedent victim entered People's witness Willis' taxicab on a clear day around 11:30 o'clock in the forenoon, and that while riding in the cab an argument between defendant and decedent broke out, during which time decedent was weeping; that during the argument defendant stated that he was going to kill her and pulled a knife from his clothing and commenced to saw and cut on decedent's neck, causing lacerations and cuts on the neck, and that 'blood was running all down on her sweater and on her clothes'. Willis further testified that when he saw the knife, and saw what defendant was doing he pulled to the curb, got out of the car and called his dispatcher over the cab mike and reported the incident, whereupon defendant left the cab.
A police officer testified that in response to a call at approximately 11:27 A.M. he immediately proceeded to the spot at which the crime had occurred, spent about fifteen minutes searching for defendant and then proceeded to the hospital where he saw the decedent, whom he recognized, on the operating table, with her throat cut and being administered to.
The coroner testified that the decedent died at about 5:50 P.M. on the date of the crime, in surgery, and that he was not present at the time of surgery, but first saw the body the following morning. At that time, he removed the sutures which had been placed in the neck to determine the depth of the neck wounds, one of which was about six inches long and the other about two inches long, and that he concluded that decedent died as a result of hemorrhaging from the lacerations on the neck. On cross-examination, he testified that the body bore the marks resulting from an incision of the chest where the surgeon had done open heart resuscitation and a small incision in the neck, where a tracheotomy tube had been inserted into the larynx, and that neither increased the loss of blood. He further testified that he was not of the opinion that the neck wounds were made by the surgeon's knife, and that although he did not make a dissection to determine exactly which vessels were cut, he concluded from the depth of the neck wounds that, the external jugular had been cut, but that the carotid artery lying deeper was not.
No evidence was offered nor does the record suggest that any supervening act disconnected from the original criminal agency was the cause of death. In People v. Meyers, 392 Ill. 355, 64 N.E.2d 531 at page 533, the Court stated that:
'The law is that when the State has shown the existence, through the act of the accused, of a sufficient cause of death, the death is presumed to have resulted from such act, unless it appears death was caused by a supervening act disconnected from any act of the defendant.'
See also, People v. Reader, 26 Ill.2d 210, 186 N.E.2d 298, wherein the Court held that the facts proved were such that would warrant a jury in believing beyond a reasonable doubt that the gunshot wound was the cause of death and that the subsequent pneumonia which arose several days prior to death in the hospital was merely a condition which would often follow hospitalization due to such a gunshot wound.
Here the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that an illegal act was committed by the defendant, which would normally, in the natural course of event, result in death. This was supported by the testimony of the coroner, and when it was proved that the victim died under the circumstances here present, the People had proved the corpus delicti beyond a reasonable doubt. We...
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People v. Stowers, Gen. No. 55017
...and the relationship between the criminal agency and the cause of death was left to inference and speculation. In Garmon v. People, 76 Ill.App.2d 24, 221 N.E.2d 320, the defendant argued that there was insufficient proof as to the cause of death. However, as the court stated at page 27, 221......
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People v. Stamps
... ... We cannot agree. We have previously held that a coroner's testimony that a knife would was the cause of death supplemented by further evidence that an accused had inflicted the wound was sufficient to prove the crime of murder. Garmon v. People, 76 Ill.App.2d 24, 221 N.E.2d 320. Here, the coroner's report attributes the cause of death to a gun shot wound of the face. It describes the path of the bullet through the mouth and throat and its exit beneath the base of the skull behind the left ear. It further states that the ... ...
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