People v. Carroll

• Citation: 299 N.E.2d 134,12 Ill.App.3d 869
• Decision Date: 05 June 1973
• Docket Number: No. 55246,55246
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Leroy CARROLL, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 134

299 N.E.2d 134

12 Ill.App.3d 869

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Leroy CARROLL, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 55246.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Second Division.

June 5, 1973.

Gerald W. Getty, Public Defender, Chicago, for defendant-appellant; Robert M. Gray and James N. Gramenos, Asst. Public Defenders, of counsel.

Edward V. Hanrahan, State's Atty., Chicago, for plaintiff-appellee; Elmer C. Kissane and Richard S. Jalovec, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel.

LEIGHTON, Justice.

Defendant was charged with robbery. He was tried by a jury, found guilty; and after post-trial motions were overruled, he was sentenced to serve five to fifteen years. In this appeal, based on the following facts, he argues six contentions as grounds for reversal of his conviction.

At about 2:00 A.M. on the morning of July 30, 1969, Johnnie Ruth Reed was returning to her apartment on the 9th floor of 4500 South State Street in Chicago. When she entered the elevator of the building, a man got in with her. Johnnie Reed had observed the man for two or three minutes. He was wearing brown pants, a yellow shirt and carried a brown jacket over his arm. As the elevator started, the man put his hand over Johnnie Reed's mouth, forced her hands behind her back and made a remark suggesting he was going to sexually molest her. A struggle ensued as they rose past the floors. On the 16th, the man pulled Johnnie Reed from the elevator. She continued struggling, bit the man's hand and began to scream. The man took her purse and ran. As he did, he dropped the jacket he was carrying. People on the same floor came out of their apartments. Two young men, Ricardo Douglas and Bruce Peoples, chased the man down the stairs. At either the 13th or 14th floor of the building, the young men found Johnnie Reed's purse. They returned it to her and resumed their pursuit of the man, running down the stairs and out into State Street.

Sergeant Edmund Lord responded to the alarm of a robbery in progress at 4500 South State Street. When he drove up, he met two young men running out of the building. He stopped them. They told Sergeant Lord about the man they were chasing, a man who was then on the east side of the street. Lord arrested the man. It was the defendant, Leroy Carroll. Fifteen minutes after the attack on Johnnie Reed, defendant was brought to the 16th floor of the building where she identified him as her attacker.

Among the policemen who responded to the call of a robbery in progress were Ronald Tillrock and his partner Nicholas Pagliaro. They went to the 16th floor of 4500 South State Street and there, near the elevator, found a jacket. In one pocket, among other personal items, was a ring containing three keys, one larger than the other two. A short time later, defendant was taken to a police station where he was charged with the robbery of Johnnie Ruth Reed.

On August 26, 1969, while defendant was in custody, policemen Tillrock and Pagliaro obtained the ring of keys from the inventory section of the Chicago police department. The officers had learned that defendant lived at 4438 South Wells Street. They went to that address. There they found the name 'Carroll' or 'Collins' on a door that led to the second floor. Tillrock inserted the large key into the door and it turned the tumbler. He then rang the bell which was answered by a man and a woman. The woman was defendant's sister, Marie Collins who, as a defense witness, testified that defendant lived in her apartment; that he had the large key and that it looked like the one to her front door.

Prior to trial, defendant made four motions: (1) for an order that would have precluded the State from impeaching his testimony with evidence of a prior conviction for rape; (2) for an order suppressing the State's identification evidence on the ground that the circumstances under which he was identified by Johnnie Ruth Reed were unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to an irreparably mistaken identification; (3) for an order suppressing the State's evidence concerning the key and the fact that it turned the tumbler in the lock to the apartment in which he lived; (4) for an order directing the official court reporter to furnish him with a free transcript of the hearing of his motion to suppress evidence. The motions were denied. The case was then presented to the jury and both sides rested. During defendant's summation, he moved for a mistrial on the ground that certain remarks of an assistant state's attorney prejudiced his rights to a fair trial. The motion was denied. Thereafter, the jury was instructed; and following its deliberation, it returned a verdict that found defendant guilty of robbery.

First, defendant contends that the trial court committed error when it denied his motion to suppress evidence which would have proved that on a prior occasion he had been convicted of rape. Defendant argues that the trial court erred when it failed to recognize it had discretion to suppress evidence of the conviction, one which the State was going to use to impeach him in the event he testified in his own defense. In the alternative, defendant contends that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to suppress evidence of the conviction. Defendant argues that because he feared impeachment, denial of his motion enabled the prosecution to intimidate him into not testifying in his defense. To support his contention, defendant relies on People v. Montgomery, 47 Ill.2d 510, 268 N.E.2d 695, a January 1971 decision in which our Supreme Court held that evidence of a prior conviction should not be permitted for purposes of impeachment if a period of more than 10 years has elapsed since the conviction or since release of the witness from confinement, whichever is the later date.

Montgomery, however, applies only to cases tried after that decision. (People v. Lowery, 1 Ill.App.3d 851, 275 N.E.2d 185; People v. Hyde, 1 Ill.App.3d 831, 275 N.E.2d 239.) This case was tried before Montgomery. It follows that the holding of that case is not applicable to this one. (People v. Beck, Ill.App., 273 N.E.2d 169.) Therefore, the trial court did not commit error when it denied the motion to suppress evidence of defendant's prior rape conviction. People v. Rossi, 52 Ill.2d 13, 284 N.E.2d 275; compare People v. Jackson, 132 Ill.App.2d 464, 270 NE.2d 498.

Second, defendant contends that the trial court committed error when it denied his motion to suppress the State's identification evidence. He argues that his two identification confrontations with Johnnie Reed: one, while he was handcuffed and standing between two uniformed policemen; the other, while he was handcuffed and seated alone on a bench in a police station, were so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification that he was denied due process of law. Defendant maintains that these confrontations affected Johnnie Reed's in-court identification testimony; therefore, his motion to suppress the State's identification evidence should have been sustained. In support of this contention, defendant relies on Stovall v. Denno (1967), 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 and a number of Illinois decisions.

We think it is obvious that defendant was subjected to identification confrontations which were unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification. The exhibition of a crime suspect, in handcuffs, to a crime victim injects an undue degree of suggestability into an identification confrontation. (People v. Lee, 44 Ill.2d 161, 254 N.E.2d 469; People v. Wright, 126 Ill.App.2d 91, 261 N.E.2d 445.) When a handcuffed crime suspect, standing between two uniformed policemen, is exhibited to a crime victim for identification, few human beings are capable of resisting the suggestion that what they are being told is: 'This is the man!' In the case before us, the first suggestive confrontation was compounded when defendant was viewed by Johnnie Reed in a police station where he was still handcuffed and sitting alone on a bench. Therefore, unless the State, by clear and convincing evidence, has shown that Johnnie Reed's in-court identification of defendant had a source independent of the confrontations, her identification testimony should have been suppressed. (People v. Blumenshine, 42 Ill.2d 508, 250 N.E.2d 152; Clemons v. United States (1968), 133 U.S.App.D.C. 27, 408 F.2d 1230; State v. Thompson (1971), 59 N.J. 396, 283 A.2d 513.) It is settled that even though an identification confrontation is improper or has been suppressed, an in-court identification is nevertheless admissible if it is based on a prior independent origin, one arising from an earlier uninfluenced observation of the suspect. People v. Spencer, 7 Ill.App.3d 1017, 288 N.E.2d 612; People v. Hill, 3 Ill.App.3d 694, 279 N.E.2d 497 (abstr.); People v. Wright, 126 Ill.App.2d 91, 261 N.E.2d 445.

In this case, clear and convincing evidence shows that at about 2:00 A.M. on July 30, 1969 Johnnie Reed was followed into her apartment building by a man. She observed him for about two or three minutes. She was in the elevator with him from the 1st to the 16th floor. When he ran past her after taking her purse she had another opportunity to see him. Without hesitation, she testified that the man was wearing brown pants, yellow shirt and was carrying a brown jacket over his arm. Significantly, in support of his motion to suppress evidence, defendant testified that he was wearing '* * * brown pants with yellow pin-stripe and beige shirt, short sleeve shirt.' True, under cross-examination, Johnnie Reed admitted that she could not recall if the man had a mustache, nor could she remember his particular hair style or his weight. She testified, and under strenuous cross-examination persisted, that she remembered his clothing and his face. We conclude that her in-court identification testimony was of independent origin, one...