People v. Bradley

• Decision Date: 12 December 1940
• Docket Number: No. 25815.,25815.
• Citation: People v. Bradley, 375 Ill. 182, 30 N.E.2d 636 (Ill. 1940)
• Parties: PEOPLE v. BRADLEY.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

375 Ill. 182

30 N.E.2d 636

PEOPLE

v.BRADLEY.

No. 25815.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 12, 1940.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Joseph A. Graber, Judge.

Fred Bradley was convicted for assault with intent to commit murder, and he brings error.

Reversed.E. Sydney Feinstein, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

John E. Cassidy, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and A. B. Dennis, of Springfield (Edward E. Wilson, John T. Gallagher, and Melvin S. Rembe, all of Chicago, of counsel), for defendant in error.

SHAW, Justice.

Fred Bradley and his mother, Lulu Bradley, were charged, by indictment in the criminal court of Cook county, with assault with intent to commit murder. The indictment contained two other counts, one charging assault with intent to commit bodily injury by means of a knife, and the other, assault with intent to commit bodily injury with a dangerous and deadly weapon. The latter two counts were dismissed and the case went to trial on the first count, only. The mother, Lulu Bradley, was found not guilty but the plaintiff in error was convicted and sues out this writ of error.

The complaining witness, Harold Haiden, was a collector for a rubber company and went to the Bradley apartment to collect about nine dollars, which he claimed was owing his company for tires on a car which Bradley had traded. Haiden was a large and powerful man, a former football player on the University of Minnesota team, while the plaintiff in error was an undersized colored man. According to Haiden's own testimony he approached his collection task in a boisterous, threatening and provocative manner. The Bradleys lived on the third floor of an apartment occupied by colored persons, the second floor being occupied by Alfreda M. Covington, who was, and for twenty-eight years had been, a probation officer for the juvenile court and appears to be entirely disinterested. The material facts in the case come from complaining witness, the two Bradleys and Mrs. Covington.

Haiden testified that he went to the Bradley flat and was told by a roomer there that Fred Bradley was not home; that he then went to a drugstore and called the flat and the phone was answered by a man, from which he correctly concluded that Bradley was at home. He testified he went up to the second floor and rapped at the door, which was Mrs. Covington's apartment, and that, after a conversation with Mrs. Covington which will be mentioned later, he went to the third floor where the occurrence in question took place. It is not clear from his testimony, or that of either of the Bradleys, whether he actually gained access to the Bradley apartment. He did testify that he rapped on the door, said that he wanted to see Fred Bradley and that Mrs. Bradley did not open the door but said he was breaking into her house; that she came out of the door and went halfway down the steps, calling him a gangster and other uncomplimentary names and that he told her ‘If you had pants on, I would make you take that back;’ that, thereupon, Fred Bradley came out with a knife in his hand, and that Haiden then tried to retreat, but that Lulu Bradley obstructed his passage and Fred Bradley struck him several times with a knife. On cross-examination the witness testified that he ‘didn't...