People v. Bundy

• Decision Date: 21 December 1920
• Docket Number: No. 13366.,13366.
• Citation: 295 Ill. 322,129 N.E. 189
• Parties: PEOPLE v. BUNDY.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

295 Ill. 322

129 N.E. 189

PEOPLE

v.BUNDY.

No. 13366.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 21, 1920.

Error to Circuit Court, Monroe County; J. F. Gillham, Judge.

Leroy N. Bundy was convicted of homicide, and he brings error.

Reversed and remanded.

Farmer, Stone, and Thompson, JJ., dissenting.T. M. Webb and Samuel W. Baxter, both of East St. Louis, A. H. Fridrichs, of Waterloo, and Hueston & Calloway, of Kansas City, Mo., for plaintiff in error.

Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., H. E. Schaumleffel, State's Atty., of Belleville, Roy Gauen, State's Atty., of Waterloo, C. W. Middlekauff, of Springfield, James A. Farmer, of Belleville, and A. C. Bolinger, of Waterloo, for the People.

CARTWRIGHT, C. J.

At about 12:15 o'clock in the morning of July 2, 1917, Samuel Coppedge, a police officer of the city of East St. Louis, was killed by a mob of colored men on Bond avenue near its intersection with Tenth street, in that city, and Leroy N. Bundy, plaintiff in error, was indicted, with others, for the murder. Other defendants were tried in the circuit court of St. Clair county and being convicted were sentenced to serve a term of 14 years in the penitentiary, and the judgment was affirmed by this court. People v. Parker, 284 Ill. 272, 120 N. E. 14. The plaintiff in error was a dentist and had practiced his profession for many years and for the last 6 years had an office on Collinsville avenue, in East St. Louis, and he lived at the southeast corner of Seventeenth street and Bond avenue. In the early morning after the murder he left East St. Louis and went to the home of his mother-in-law in St. Louis, and after about two weeks he removed to Cleveland, the home of his father, and opened an office there, but was extradited and brought back for trial. His application for a change of venue was allowed and the cause was transferred to Monroe county, where he was tried in the circuit court and found guilty, and after motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were overruled he was sentenced on the verdict to imprisonment in the penitentiary for his natural life and sued out a writ of error from this court.

It was charged that there was a conspiracy of a considerable number of colored men living in East St. Louis to arm themselves and assault any white man who should come into the section of the city of East St. Louis inhabited almost entirely by colored people, and the fact to be first proved by the people was the existence of such a conspiracy. It was proved by practically the same evidence introduced on the trial of the other defendants and by this court held to be sufficient. That fact having been proved, it was then necessary to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant was one of the conspirators and so related to the mob at Tenth street and Bond avenue in carrying out the purposes for which the conspiracy was formed as to make him responsible for the murder. The evidence offered for that purpose consisted of the following testimony:

A witness who lived on Bond avenue four doors from the defendant's home, said that in the last week in June she saw a red automobile stop in front of his place and two colored boys got out and each carried two guns into his place and came back and got into the machine and drove away. Edward Wilson, a colored man who was the principal witness on the former trial and whose testimony was recited in the case of People v. Parker, supra, testified to substantially the same facts on the trial of defendant, and said that at 11 o'clock a whistle blew and he heard some bells ringing and got up and went to Fifteenth street and Piggott avenue, where there were a number of people standing on the street, and he saw the defendant standing there, but did not know whether he was armed, and heard one of the crowd say that they had shot into an automobile. A part, at least, of the buiness of Wilson was selling to colored people tickets which he called policies, connected with some sort of a wheel game, and a witness testified that shortly after the riot Wilson in his mother's house told the witness that he did not know anything against Bundy, but they beat him and he made the statement that he had seen him that night in order to get released from jail, and that was the reason he made the statement against him. Another witness testified that after the former trial in Belleville, in which Wilson had testified, he said that he did not know anything about Bundy, and that he had to swear against him because he had been beaten, and testified in order to get released or discharged from the charge himself. Another witness testified that at 1 o'clock in the morning of July 2, after the riot and shooting, Wilson came to the garage of the defendant and borrowed a jack to repair a tire, and said that he had been down to Fifteenth street and Piggott avenue and had seen a crowd down there and repeated a conversation which he said he heard there. Giving this information to the defendant was wholly inconsistent with his testimony that the defendant was there at the time of the occurrence. The defendant testified to the same statement by Wilson, and all this tended materially to discredit the witness. Two witnesses testified that between 11 and 11:30 on the night of July 1 they saw a big black machine driven by the defendant followed by a red machine, both loaded with colored people, going south on Tenth street at Piggott avenue, and one said that the cars turned at the free bridge and came back and drove east on Piggott avenue to Eleventh street, which was the last he saw of them. Another witness said that he saw two machins pass along Tenth street, going south, near the mouth of Trendley avenue, at 11:15 or 11:30, and he recognized the defendant in the front seat of the front car. Another witness testified that he and two other persons were stopped by three colored men about 11:30 or 11:45 in the evening of July 1 and were told to get home, and they ran and the men commenced shooting at them; that he did not know the defendant, but he looked like one of the men. It was proved by the official court reporter that this witness on the former trial said he could not identify the men, that they had their caps pulled down over their eyes, and that he could not tell who the fellows were and did not know the three. There was nothing tending to prove that the defendant performed any act or said anything in furtherance or in connection with the conspiracy or common design to assault white men who came into the district inhabited by colored people.

This was all the legitimate evidence to prove connection between the defendant and the conspirators, and, eliminating the testimony of Wilson as discredited, it consisted only of testimony that he was driving a car in the streets of East St. Louis the night of July 1 and that his car was followed by another car, both loaded with colored people. There was no evidence tending to prove that he was present or participated in any way with the mob when Coppedge was killed. At his residence he had an automobile service station and also carried on a repair business, and he denied that any guns were carried into his place or that he had any participation whatever, directly or indirectly, with any conspiracy, and said he was absolutely and wholly free from the slightest connection with anything of the kind. He carried passengers for hire, and testified that on the night of July 1 he answered a call to furnish a car to Red's Place, on Fifth and Broadway, and went there and took four passengers-Oscar Wallace, Frank Davis, George Lyons, and a woman-to White City, formerly called Priester's Park; that they remained there until a little after 11 o'clock, when they started back and went to Edgemont, about four miles distant, and from there to a saloon at Centerville station, about five miles southwest of Edgemont, where they stayed in a saloon for a time; that he went from there to Collinsville avenue, and in going down that avenue stopped at his office to put out...