People v. Adams
| Decision Date | 21 December 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 71--312,71--312 |
| Citation | 291 N.E.2d 54,9 Ill.App.3d 61 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Thomas Samuel ADAMS, Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Kenneth L. Jones, Dist. Defender, Ill. Defender Project, Mt. Vernon, for appellant.
James W. Jerz, Principal Atty., Betty Campbell Wolf, Staff Atty., Ill. State's Attorneys Assn., Elgin, Robert H. Rice, State's Atty., St. Clair County, Belleville, for appellee.
Defendant was tried before a jury in the Circuit Court of St. Clair County on an indictment charging him with two murders. He was acquitted of one and was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter on the other and was sentenced for a term of two to ten years in the penitentiary. The principal issue in this appeal is whether a defendant can be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter of a third person unintentionally killed by him while defending himself against an unlawful attack by another.
It is undisputed that on August 22, 1970, at about 9:15 in the evening in the City of Centreville defendant shot and killed Le-Roy Robinson and that one of the bullets passed through Robinson and killed Mary Davis. Neither the events leading up to the shooting nor the facts surrounding the shooting itself are entirely clear, but both the defendant and the State seem to accept the following summary. Defendant and Robinson were acquaintances, and shortly before the shooting, they were together with mutual friends in a car parked outside a tavern. There was testimony that they had an argument as to which one of them owed the other a small amount of money, that no threats were exchanged; but that defendant was observed to have a gun in his possession. This incident ended when defendant and his wife left the car and started to walk to their home a few blocks away and Robinson went back to his own car. The State's only witness to the actual shooting was John Brooks. He stated that he and Robinson had been together most of the day and that they had been drinking on and off for 10 or 12 hours; that when Robinson came back to his car he, Brooks, was sitting in the back seat and that Mary Davis, Robinson's girl friend, was sitting in the front seat alongside Robinson. When Robinson drove his car up to defendant, who was walking, Brooks saw defendant approach the car with a gun in his hand, saw the pistol when it flashed in the window, and heard 3 or 4 shots fired. He did not hear any words exchanged between defendant and Robinson. He said that Robinson fell out of the car and then he, Brooks, took off Robinson's wrist watch and handed it to Mary Davis. He saw her walk off and did not notice anything unusual about her condition. Two police officers testified that they found Brooks in the car shortly after the shooting, that he was not completely coherent, that contrary to his trial testimony he had told them originally that he was sitting in the front seat and Mary was in the back seat. They found Robinson's body outside the car and a .38 caliber slug on the front seat. The coroner testified that Robinson had four bullet wounds, three of which had passed through his body. Mary had a bullet would of the abdomen and had died approximately 4 hours after having been shot. The State presented no evidence, either ballistically or otherwise, linking the bullet found in Mary's body to defendant's gun, nor did they offer any explanation of how or when Mary got to the hospital where she apparently had died.
For the defense one witness testified that shortly before the shooting he had noticed that Robinson had a gun under the front seat of his car. Another witness, Paris Calame, testified that he lived with Robinson and that he was in the car at the time of the shooting. He said that Robinson was the first to shoot, that he fired two shots into the ground and that defendant hollered, 'You are shooting at me', and that then defendant 'went' to shooting. He said he and Mary both jumped out of the car and broke and ran, but that she did not go far until she fell screaming that she had been shot. He said that he arranged for her to be taken to the hospital. Two other witnesses testified that Robinson had a reputation for violence.
Defendant testified that during their earlier argument he had given Robinson $2.00 after Robinson had threatened him with a gun; that later, while he and his wife were walking home, Robinson pulled up alongside them in his car, cursed him and demanded more money. He stated that Robinson fired at him twice, that he could see the flashes and that he figured his life was in jeopardy so he returned the fire as...
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Gladden v. State
...By statutory revision effective 1962 an 'unintended' victim is expressly within the provisions of the statute. See People v. Adams, 9 Ill.App.3d 61, 291 N.E.2d 54 (1972); People v. Forrest, 133 Ill.App.2d 70, 272 N.E.2d 813 (1971).21 South Carolina: State v. Heyward, 197 S.E. 371, 15 S.E.2d......
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People v. Robinson
...but if the force against A is unjustified and it kills B, even though unintentionally, one is liable for B 's death. (People v. Adams (1972), 9 Ill.App.3d 61, 291 N.E.2d 54.) Accordingly, refusal of a voluntary-manslaughter instruction in the case at bar fundamentally limited the jury's opt......
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Com. v. Fowlin
...be manslaughter if, considering all the circumstances, the defendant's conduct toward the bystander was reckless); People v. Adams, 9 Ill.App.3d, 61, 291 N.E.2d 54 (1972) (one who acts in self-defense and accidentally kills another is guilty of no crime; but this rule is not absolute and ma......
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People v. Johnson
...kills another, he is guilty of the same degree of unlawful homicide as if he had killed the object of his aim. (People v. Adams, 9 Ill.App.3d 61, 291 N.E.2d 54 (5th Dist. 1972).) Both the testimony of Devie Williams and the answers of the defendant in the instant cause indicate that the def......
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§ 18.05 Self-Defense: Special Issues
...People v. Mathews, 91 Cal. App. 3d 1018, 1023-24 (1979); Smith v. State, 419 S.E.2d 74, 75 (Ga. Ct. App. 1992); People v. Adams, 291 N.E.2d 54, 55-56 (Ill. App. Ct. 1972).[169] People v. Adams, 291 N.E.2d at 56.[170] See id. (dictum); People v. Jackson, 212 N.W.2d 918 (Mich. 1973).[171] It ......
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§ 18.05 SELF-DEFENSE: SPECIAL ISSUES
...People v. Mathews, 91 Cal. App. 3d 1018, 1023-24 (Ct. App. 1979); Smith v. State, 419 S.E.2d 74, 75 (Ga. Ct. App. 1992); People v. Adams, 291 N.E.2d 54, 55-56 (Ill. App. Ct. 1972).[169] . People v. Adams, 291 N.E.2d at 56.[170] . See id. (dictum); People v. Jackson, 212 N.W.2d 918 (Mich. 19......
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TABLE OF CASES
...410 Ackerman, People v., 274 N.E.2d 125 (Ill. App. Ct. 1971), 94 Acosta, People v., 609 N.E.2d 518 (N.Y. 1993), 374 Adams, People v., 291 N.E.2d 54 (Ill. App. Ct. 1972), 236 Adams, State v., 91 So.3d 724 (Ala. Crim. App. 2010), 98 Adams, State v., 98 S.W.2d 632, 497 Addington v. Texas, 441 ......