People v. Bell
| Decision Date | 09 February 1928 |
| Docket Number | No. 18083.,18083. |
| Citation | 328 Ill. 446,159 N.E. 807 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. BELL et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Circuit Court, Peoria County; T. N. Green, Judge.
Elmer Bell and Ralph Hackett were convicted of robbery and of robbery with a dangerous weapon, and they bring error.
Affirmed as to Hackett; reversed and remanded as to Bell.
George W. Sprenger, of Chicago, for plaintiffs in error.
Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., Henry E. Pratt, State's Atty., of Peoria, and Merrill F. Wehmhoff, of Springfield, for the People.
Plaintiffs in error, Elmer Bell and Ralph Hackett, were indicted, tried, and convicted in the circuit court of Peoria county upon an indictment containing two counts, the first of which charged the crime of robbery, and the second robbery with a dangerous weapon. Joseph Daugherty was indicted with plaintiffs in error, but he is not otherwise connected with the record.
The evidence shows that on June 8, 1924, Roy Newman, John Streicker, and Charles Davis, employees of the Peoria Railroad Company, which operates a street car system in Peoria, were operating a special car to collect the receipts of the system for the previous day from various street car barns, and in the course of their employment they proceeded to the Main street car barn, where they made a collection and then proceeded a short distance to the corner of Main and Globe streets for the purpose of turning the car around. When their car rounded the corner to Globe street, a dark blue Cadillac touring car, closely curtained, was parked near a laundry on that corner. Newman, the motorman, stopped the car on Globe street; and, as he did so, Davis, acting as conductor, stepped off the back end of the car to turn the trolley. Just then the Cadillac car turned around and came up Globe street, back of the street car. Two men got out of the Cadillac car, and one of them, with a gun in his hand, ordered Davis to put up his hands and go back into the street car, and another man held a gun on Newman and Streicker. The robbers wore raincoats, and the part of their faces below the eyes was covered with masks, and caps drawn down over their eyes covered their hair. The money which had been collected was in tin tills inclosed in wooden boxes. The robbers ordered the employees to hand the boxes containing the money out to them. All the boxes were loaded into the Cadillac car except three, which were left on the sidewalk. The boxes taken contained about $800 in money. The Cadillac car was immediately driven away, going up Globe street to Knoxville, and out Knoxville avenue. Davis testified that all three men engaged in the robbery, but none of the employees identified either plaintiff in error as being one of the robbers.
Newman reported the occurrence to the police at once, and they arrived on the scene a few minutes later in a riot car. It had rained the night before, and it was misting some at the time of the robbery, so that the pavements were quite wet. The policemen testified that they were able to trace the Cadillac car, by means of tracks upon the wet pavement, up Globe street to Knoxville avenue, up Knoxville avenue to McClure avenue, east on McClure avenue, and into Glen Oak Park, where the tracks became confused with various other tracks. After talking with the man at the greenhouse in Glen Oak Park, the police proceeded through the park to the bottom of the hill, where at the entrance to a cemetery they found a Cadillac car, which was identified as the one driven away from the scene of the robbery about 15 minutes before. Some witnesses testified that they saw in the Cadillac car pieces of wood similar to that of the boxes later found and identified as the boxes taken from the street car. While the officers were standing about the Cadillac car, they heard the roar of a motor on top of the hill a short distance away. On Lake street, in the village of Averyville, near the park, the officers found an Essex car, mired in the mud. Two men were standing near it. After the officers approached and got out of their car, the two men started running. Officer Fitch fired at them, and they jumped over a nearby embankment. Fitch testified that he recognized Hackett, but did not recognize Bell, whom he knew. The officers followed Hackett and arrested him, several blocks from the Essex automobile. The Essex automobile belonged to Bell, who was arrested in his room on North Adams street about 8 o'clock of the same morning.
Myrtle Bradshaw testified that, shortly before the arrest of Hackett, she saw two boys dodging in and out of sheds in her back yard; that Hackett, who was arrested in her presence, asked her to permit him to hide in her house, and the other young man ran away. This witness did not identify Bell as the man who ran away. Anna Rose, a witness living in the neighborhood where Hackett's arrest was made, testified that she saw two boys running through Myrtle Bradshaw's yard on that morning, and she identified plaintiffs in error as those two young men. The officers testified that, on their return to the Essex car on Lake street, they found splinters on the bottom of the car, and in the back seat there were splinters and a large hammer; that on the front seat was a brown coat, in the pocket of which was a picture of Bell; that on the ground, two or three feet back of the Essex car, they found wooden boxes and tin money tills, which were identified on the trial as those taken from the street car at the time of the robbery. The boxes had been broken open, and contained no money when found.
Both defendants took the stand and denied any connection with the robbery. Heckett testified that on the day of the robbery he was employed as a taxicab driver; that he had worked the entire preceding night, and that between 6:30 and 7 o'clock on that morning he received a call from William Pillman to go to McClure avenue, near the entrance of Glen Oak Park; that his Hudson sedan had broken down, and he was unable to answer the call with his car, so he went to the room of Bell and asked him for his key, and for permission to use his car, an Essex; that on his way to answer this call he picked up Joe Zipper, who had broken jail and was wanted by the police, and took him with him, and that they were mired in the mud on Lake street, and were attempting to get the car out of the mud when the police arrived; that as soon as the police arrived they started shooting at the witness and Zipper; that Zipper ran away and he (Hackett) threw up his hands, but, as the police kept on shooting, he likewise ran. Bell testified that he had been out until about 3:30 o'clock in the morning with a girl from East Peoria; that he was in bed when Hackett came that morning and asked him for the key to his car, which he gave him; that he did not know the residence of his companion of the night before; that it was physically impossible for him to run, because of a partial paralysis of his legs, due to syphilis. In this latter statement he was corroborated by a Dr. Trewyn, who testified that he had treated Bell for two years for syphilis in the tertiary stage; that his left leg and arm were then paralyzed, and that it was impossible for him to run. William Pillman, the man who Hackett testified had called him to come to McClure avenue, testified that he called Hackett from some house on McClure avenue, but that he did not know where the house was located. Evidence was offered by the people tending to show that Pillman's reputation for truth and veracity was bad. His statement on the witness stand was in some respects contradictory and in others improbable.
In rebuttal the state introduced the evidence of Fred Matthews, who testified, over the objection of plaintiffs in error, that on the morning in question he saw an Essex car in Glen Oak Park, across from a certain log cabin and near the greenhouse; that later a Cadillac car was driven alongside the Essex, and two men transferred boxes, or some heavy substance, from the Cadillac car to the Essex, the operation requiring some seven or eight minutes, and the Cadillac and Essex then separated, and a few minutes later the police came. Counsel for plaintiffs in error objected to this testimony on the ground that it was not proper rebuttal, and after Mathews had testified moved to strike out...
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