People v. Bey

• Decision Date: 27 March 1969
• Docket Number: No. 39010,39010
• Citation: 246 N.E.2d 287,42 Ill.2d 139
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Ben BEY, Plaintiff in Error.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 287

246 N.E.2d 287

42 Ill.2d 139

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Ben BEY, Plaintiff in Error.

No. 39010.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

March 27, 1969.

Peter Boznos, Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and John J. Stamos, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Elmer C. Kissane and Thomas J. Immel, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel for defendant in error.

UNDERWOOD, Justice.

Defendant, Ben Bey, seeks reversal of a Cook County circuit court judgment entered upon a jury verdict finding him guilty of burglary. He was sentenced to a term of 10 to 20 years imprisonment to be served concurrently with the sentence imposed in another case.

The indictment upon which this conviction occurred, No. 61--1382, was returned May 12, 1961. It charged that defendant entered the dwelling of Sandra Dragisic on April 30 and stole two purses belonging to Miss Dragisic and Janet Horvath and specifically described the contents of the purses.

On that morning Miss Dragisic and her roommate, Sharon Simpsen, were sleeping in the bedroom of the 2 1/2-room apartment. The apartment door had been left unlocked so that their roommate, Miss Horvath, would not need to wake them when she returned from visiting friends who lived upstairs. About 4:30 A.M., Miss Dragisic was suddenly awakened by the movements of a man in her bed who was attempting to perform an act of cunnilingus. She succeeded in eluding the man's grasp following a struggle and threats of violence by the intruder. Her screams awakened Miss Simpsen who also began to cry out. The man sprang from the bed leaning down at the foot, apparently to pick up something, and fled through the door to the living room. Miss Dragisic locked the bedroom door and called the police.

A search of the apartment was made when the police arrived, and the girls discovered two purses were missing. Officer Dahm found on the bedroom floor a button which did not belong to the girls and which they had not seen before. A statement was then taken from Miss Dragisic by the officers. That statement contains no mention of any 'bumps' or abnormalities on defendant's head although Miss Dragisic later testified she told the officers of this at the time.

At 1:00 A.M. on May 2, 1961, Officers Foley and Preische were patrolling the area around the burglarized apartment. While parked in the mouth of the alley they observed a man crossing a vacant space between two buildings in the adjacent lot. They noted this man removing his jacket as he ran. The police then left their car to give chase and apprehended him. They then retraced the route defendant had taken while running and found two jackets under a car. The outer of these, a dark blue jacket with the bottom of three buttons missing, was identified by the officers at the trial as the jacket they saw defendant removing when they first saw him.

Defendant was then taken to the apartment building where Sandra Dragisic was summoned to a hallway to view defendant. Other residents of the building including Miss Simpsen and a Mr. Radner, whose apartment had been burglarized earlier that night, were also present. After listening to defendant's voice and, apparently, feeling his head Miss Dragisic positively identified him as her assailant. The peculiar configurations of the intruder's head, noted by Miss Dragisic during her struggle and which were partially responsible for her identification of defendant, were explained by him as the result of a skull fracture caused when he was hit on the head by a golf club. Miss Simpsen, who apparently had little, if any, physical contact with the assailant was unable to identify defendant.

Numerous errors are alleged to have occurred; it is urged that the circumstances surrounding Miss Dragisic's initial identification of defendant were so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification that defendant was denied due process under the standards of Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199. Whether due process was denied under Stovall depends on the 'totality of the circumstances surrounding' identification. (388 U.S. at 302, 87 S.Ct. at 1972, 18 L.Ed.2d at 1206.) While this was a pre-Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149, and pre-Gilbert, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178, trial so that the absence of counsel at the time of defendant's initial identification does not preclude admission of the identification evidence, defendant is, under Stovall entitled to a determination whether due process requirements were violated in the identification circumstances here present. We think they were not, although, concededly, those circumstances were substantially short of ideal. (See People v. Gardner, 35 Ill.2d 564, 572, 221 N.E.2d 232.) There are, however, several circumstances distinguishing the identification procedure here from that in Stovall. The witness here did not depend upon visual observation as the only or even major means of identification. While Miss Dragisic indicated some confusion as to whether she felt defendant's head on May 2, it is clear that the visible 'bumps' were a major factor in her identification, and that this peculiarily couled with her recognition of defendant's voice weighed far more heavily in her decision than did her visual observation.

It should be noted also that, in contradistinction to Stovall where the challenged identification was the principal proof of guilt, there is here substantial, independent corroborating evidence in the form of the button found in the girls' apartment.

A police miscroanalyst testified that he compared the button found in the apartment with the remaining buttons on the coat found under a parked car near where defendant was arrested. He also compared the thread hanging from the button with that attached to the area on the coat where the button was missing. His conclusions were that the buttons were similar in shape, design, physical size and color. The threads were similar in respect to color as were the number of bundles of fiber constituting the thread and the direction of the twist of the thread. In his opinion 'the button came from that coat.' While defendant complains of the failure of this witness to make a chemical analysis of the button and thread for purposes of comparison with an analysis of the thread and remaining buttons on the coat, the witness testified the miscroscopic examination was the 'best' test of similarity of these objects. It seems clear that the absence of a chemical analysis affects only the probative value, and not the admissibility of this expert testimony. See People v. Green, 28 Ill.2d 286, 192 N.E.2d 398; People v. Jennings, 252 Ill. 534, 549--552, 96 N.E. 1077, 43 L.R.A.,N.S., 1206.

Also urged as error is defendant's contention that while the indictment charged burglary with intent to commit larceny, he was tried for either an assault or attempt to rape, thereby depriving him of his constitutional right to be tried on the charge in the indictment, to know the nature of the accusation, and not to be exposed to double jeopardy. It is true that much of the evidence by the State related to the attack on Miss Dragisic and that comparatively little mention is made of theft of the purses. We cannot agree, however, with the defendant that his constitutional guarantees were thereby abrogated, for there is no indication that defendant was hampered in preparing his defense. Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 55 S.Ct. 629, 79 L.Ed....