People v. Ciucci

Decision Date23 May 1956
Docket NumberNo. 33797,33797
Citation8 Ill.2d 619,137 N.E.2d 40
PartiesThe PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Vincent CIUCCI, Sr., Plaintiff in Error.
CourtIllinois Supreme Court

George N. Leighton, Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Latham Castle, Atty. Gen., and John Gutknecht, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach, Decatur, Edwin A. Strugala, Irwin D. Bloch, John T. Gallagher, Rudolph L. Janega, and William L. Carlin, Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

PER CURIAM.

After trial by jury in the criminal court of Cook County, Vincent Ciucci was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He has sued out a writ of error to review the judgment.

The indictment charged defendant with murdering his nine-year-old son, Vincent, Jr., by shooting and asphyxiation. The record shows that defendant, with his wife and their three children, lived in the rear portion of a brick building. They operated a small grocery store in the front portion. At two o'clock in the morning of December 5, 1953, the building was discovered in flames. Defendant was observed in a crouched position inside the front door of the store portion, which had a glass panel, and two persons in the neighborhood broke the door and pulled him out of the burning building. Firemen later arrived and removed the bodies of his wife and three children, which were still lying in their respective beds. The bodies were taken to the county hospital, where they were pronounced dead. Upon removal to the morgue it was discovered that each had a hole penetrating the head.

The day before the fire defendant had borrowed a .22-caliber rifle from a friend, stating that he wanted to go hunting for rabbits. After the fire subsided the rifle was found separated into its two parts in a kitchen wardrobe cabinet. Two days later police officers found several empty .22-caliber cartridge cases on the premises. Ballistic tests proved these to have been fired from the rifle borrowed by defendant. They also found portions of a sheet, a pillow slip and a pillow, all of which bore human blood stains, the latter also containing a bullet. Bullets were found in the brains of the wife and daughters, and the son's head contained a wound which an expert testified was caused by a bullet passing through the head from the right side and leaving the left side.

For two or three years prior to the fire defendant had been acquainted with a 21-year-old girl named Carol Amora. In May, 1952, her father died leaving her an inheritance of $2300. From time to time she loaned defendant a total of $1300 of this to enable him to buy a car and pay debts. They began having sexual relations, and lived together for a time in a hotel. Defendant stated his wife would not give him a divorce but only separate maintenance. After Carol became pregnant by him, he stated he owed back 'alimony' to his wife, and could not afford to keep Carol with the baby coming in addition to his wife and three children. After the baby was born they resumed sexual relations, defendant expressing intentions of getting a divorce.

On the day of the fire the defendant, while in the hospital, gave a lengthy statement to the authorities in which he related that on the preceding night his children went to bed about 10:30 o'clock, his wife retired at 11:30, and he went to bed a short time after midnight; that the next thing he remembered was a feeling of heat and shortness of breath; that the building was filled with smoke, causing him to gag for breath; that he called to his wife, leaped out of bed and tried to reach the telephone; and that he then ran through the store, banged on the front door and broke the glass.

Defendant did not testify at the trial. Three witnesses were called on his behalf. Two of them testified defendant loved his son; and the third, a neighbor, testified that about two o'clock in the morning of December 5, 1953, he heard a loud booming noise and the shouting of people, that he looked toward the building in question and saw smoke and flames coming from it, and that he ran to the front of the building and helped pick up the defendant, who was lying on the ground half in the vestibule and half outside. No evidence was offered to dispute or explain the principal facts brought out by the evidence for the prosecution.

Defendant's thirteen assignments of error may be grouped into seven general categories. He urges first that inflammatory and irrelevant evidence was admitted. The evidence complained of is the testimony of Carol Amora concerning their illicit relationship and the money borrowed by defendant; testimony concerning the deaths of defendant's wife and two daughters and descriptions of their bodies; and the rifle, empty cartridge shells, bullets, and blood-stained pillow slip and bed sheet, which were admitted as exhibits and taken by the jury into the jury room. The evidence of illicit sexual relationship and the deaths of defendant's wife and other children, it is argued, is incompetent because it relates to other offenses and because it is highly inflammatory in nature. The general rule, of course, is that evidence of a distinct substantive offense, or evidence which tends to mislead or prejudice the jury, cannot be admitted in a prosecution for another offense. This rule, however, is simply one aspect of the still more general rule that evidence must be confined to the subject of the indictment, which is the only matter an accused can be expected to come prepared to answer. Farris v. People, 129 Ill. 521, 21 N.E. 821, 4 L.R.A. 582. The rule does not render incompetent such evidence where it is pertinent to the issue and tends to prove the crime charged. People v. Fricker, 320 Ill. 495, 151 N.E. 280. In this case there is a logical connection between the sexual relationship with Carol Amora and the crime with which defendant was charged.

Evidence of the death of defendant's wife and two daughters in the same catastrophe was clearly admissible as a part of the res gestae. People v. Murphy, 276 Ill. 304, 114 N.E. 609; Hickam v. People, 137 Ill. 75, 27 N.E. 88. While the prosecution indulged in some unnecessary detail of evidence descriptive of the condition of the bodies, it was not an abuse of discretion for the court to admit it, or to admit as exhibits the rifle, cartridge cases, bullets, and blood-stained bed clothing. People v. Fisher, 340 Ill. 216, 172 N.E. 743. The general rule is that whatever tends to prove any material fact is relevant and competent. Much of defendant's argument as to evidence goes merely to its weight and not to its admissibility. There was no error in admitting the evidence in question, nor did the court err in permitting the jury to take the exhibits to the jury room. Whether particular exhibits bear directly on the charge, and hence may be taken to the jury room, is a matter resting largely in the sound discretion of the trial judge. People v. Love, 310 Ill. 558, 567, 142 N.E. 204.

It is further contended the trial court in two instances improperly allowed witnesses for the State to usurp the province of the jury by giving opinions of fact upon which the decision of the case depended. An expert in the city fire department testified that on the basis of his examination of charred sections of the premises on the day of the fire he had an opinion there had been five separate and distinct fires. The coroner's physician, a specialist in the field of pathology, described the wound in the head of the deceased son and testified that in his opinion it was caused by a .22-caliber bullet. Defendant insists the matters testified to were ultimate facts for the jury and incompetent as a subject for expert testimony. We can see no error in allowing the testimony. As to the latter, the fact for the jury to determine was whether the wound was inflicted by defendant with the particular gun in question. See Cannon v. People, 141 Ill. 270, 277, 30 N.E. 1027. As to the fireman's testimony, the question whether there were several distinct fires is obviously not an ultimate one to be determined by the jury. It has long been the rule in this State that expert testimony is acceptable wherever peculiar skill and judgment applied to a particular subject are...

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