People v. Clark
| Decision Date | 22 January 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 37756,37756 |
| Citation | 30 Ill.2d 216,195 N.E.2d 631 |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Arthur CLARK, Plaintiff in Error. |
Charles A. Brizzolara, Chicago, for plaintiff in error.
William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and Daniel P. Ward, State's Atty., Chicago , for defendant in error.
Defendant, Arthur Clark, after waiving a jury and submitting to a bench trial in the criminal court of Cook County, was found guilty of burglary and sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of four to nine years. He prosecutes this writ of error for review contending he was not fully informed of his right to a jury trial, or of the consequences of his waiver, and that he was not proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Evidence for the prosecution shows that during the early morning hours of October 31, 1961, Chicago police officer Edward Wodnicki discovered a panel which had been drilled out and replaced in a garage door at the rear of 1420 S. Michigan Avenue. Directly across the alley, behind two garbage cans, the officer discovered an axe, a brace and a bit, and he also observed an empty Ford automobile parked nearby. His suspicions aroused, Wodnicki concealed himself behind the garbage cans and maintained a surveillance from approximately 3:30 A.M. to 3:55 A.M., at which time he walked to a nearby restaurant and telephoned for assistance. This took about five minutes. He returned to the alley and was soon joined by two detectives who set up a floodlight directed at the garage door. About 4:45 A.M. the drilled panel was kicked out from the inside, after which defendant emerged and took some packages that were handed to him through the door. He walked to the Ford car, placed the packages therein and returned to the garage. After this had been repeated twice two other men emerged through the panel opening and all three men picked up some packages and started for the car. At this point the police turned on the floodlight and placed the three under arrest.
Defendant's companions were Harry Boyd and James Johnson who were subsequently indicted and tried with him. Johnson, according to Wodnicki, admitted that the brace and bit had been used to drill out the panel, and that the axe had been used to knock out the plaster in a stairwell. A search of Johnson's person produced a paring knife and a screwdriver, while Boyd was found to have a paper upon which the words 'N-E-C Radio Corp.' were written. Some 58 packages were recovered by the officers, either in the car, in the hands of the men, or just inside the garage door, and all but one, which contained radio parts, were found to contain transistor radios. All three of the men gave fictitious addresses.
The remaining witness for the prosecution, Chris Marinic, testified that he was the secretary of the N-E-C Radio Corporation which occupied the second floor of the premises, and that when he was summoned there by the police at 5:00 A.M., he found a hole in the wall of the stairwell to the office and empty boxes and cartons scattered about. On the basis of an inventory taken fourteen days prior to the burglary it was ascertained that 460 radios, five cameras and a box of radio parts were missing. Of these items only the box of spare parts and 57 radios described by Wodnicki were ever recovered. In this regard, the officer testified that defendant and his co-defendants refused to talk about the missing radios and cameras.
In defense to the charge, the testimony of defenant and his two companions tended to be along the same lines. According to them they had spent the evening drinking and had purchased a bottle of gin, after which they drove into the alley and parked to drink it. While so engaged they purportedly saw two men walking down the alley with packages in their hands and, a short time later, when defendant left the car to relieve himself, he...
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...of the offenses of burglary and home invasion is the entry into a dwelling (or other edifice) without authority. (People v. Clark (1964), 30 Ill.2d 216, 219, 195 N.E.2d 631; People v. Sansone (1981), 94 Ill.App.3d 271, 273, 49 Ill.Dec. 842, 418 N.E.2d 862; People v. Bailey (1980), 80 Ill.Ap......
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