People v. La Coco

• Decision Date: 18 May 1950
• Docket Number: No. 31332,31332
• Citation: 94 N.E.2d 178,406 Ill. 303
• Parties: PEOPLE v. LA COCO et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 178

94 N.E.2d 178

406 Ill. 303

PEOPLE v. LA COCO et al.

No. 31332.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 18, 1950.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Sept. 18, 1950.

Charles A. Bellows, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error Nickolas lAcoco.

Richard Devine, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error Harry Wagner.

Ivan A. Elliott, Attorney General, and John S. Boyle, State's Attorney, of Chicago (John T. Gallagher, Rudolph L. Janega, Edmund H. Grant, and William Brumlik, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the people.

WILSON, Justice.

Defendant, Kickolas LaCoco and Harry Wagner, together with Albert Smyth and Ray Auburn, were indicted in the criminal court of Cook County for the burglary of a currency exchange. Auburn died before the trial and Smyth was granted a severance from LaCoco. Wagner, upon being denied a severance from LaCoco, stood trial with him and a jury found each of them guilty of burglary, as charged. Defendants received like sentences of imprisonment in the penitentiary for terms of not less than forty nor more than fifty years, and now prosecute this writ of error.

The record discloses that, in the early hours of the morning of October 24, 1947, four men broke into the rear of a machine shop at 1775 North Cicero Avenue, Chicago, and, with tools brought for the purpose, proceeded to dig a hole in the wall to the adjoining currency exchange at 1777 North Cicero Avenue until only the plaster wall in the currency exchange remained standing. As Stanley Suftko, Sr., the owner of the machine shop, and his two employees, Stanley Suftko, Jr., and Angelo Mattiola, reported for work at various times between eight and ten o'clock in the morning, each was ordered into a small washroom at the rear of the shop at gun point by one or more of the burglars, all of whom wore caps and gloves and had handkerchiefs tied across the lower part of their faces. About twenty minutes to eleven, the employees of an armored money truck service made a routine delivery of $6000 to the currency exchange, unlocked an inner part of the safe, and returned about ten minutes later with an additional $1000 in change. After the money truck left for the second time, three of the masked burglars burst through the wall into the currency exchange. Margaret McLaughlin, the cashier, who was alone at the time, ran behind a partition and then fled to the washroom, while the men, overlooking only $300, quickly gathered up almost $10,000 and retreated through the hole in the wall. The escape was made through the rear door of the machine shop, and down a passageway leading to an alley.

Edward Morris, the operator of a gasoline station fifty feet south of the currency exchange, reported that, at half past seven in the morning in question, he investigated an unfamiliar 1946 powder blue Plymouth four-door sedan on his lot, and noticed it had a Pinkerton sticker pasted on one window. Although he had noted it at the time, he was unable to recall the license number at the trial. According to Morris, a single person removed the car from his property about ten-thirty the same morning. Police detective. Charles Fitzgerald testified that he interviewed Morris about two hours after the burglary and then checked all automobile licenses starting with the number 1-709 and containing seven figures.

About half past one in the morning of December 10, 1947, Fitzgerald and his partner, Sylvester Hanrahan, arrested LaCoco, Wagner, Auburn and two other men in a 1947 powder blue Plymouth four-door sedan bearing the license number 1-709-930 and having a small pinkerton sticker on a side window. LaCoco admitted ownership of the car. Shortly after the prisoners had been removed to the detective bureau, LaCoco was brought into the office of Timothy J. O'Connell, the sergeant in charge of the special assignments division, for interrogation. Sometime before daybreak, both the time and the circumstances being in dispute, LaCoco made an oral confession implicating Wagner, Smyth and Auburn as his accomplices. Subsequently, LaCoco repeated his confession to police detective James S. Kennedy in a small room off O'Connell's office, while, unknown to him, Wagner was in the main office listening to the conversation with earphones attached to a hidden microphone. Before being booked and transferred to the county jail on December 12, LaCoco and Wagner and their companions were viewed by various witnesses, either in O'Connell's office on the third floor or in a theater-like room on the eleventh floor, on four different occasions. Mrs. McLaughlin and two men, Edgar Ketchum and Casey Slow, viewed the prisoners on the afternoon of December 10, and each of the three men who worked in the machine shop saw them at separate showups on the evening of December 11. At each showup, LaCoco repeated his confession in varying detail. Several of the civilian witnesses agreed LaCoco had stated that he was not present when the money was divided and that, upon learning $10,000 had been taken, he felt the others had cheated him because he had received only $1700 as his share of the venture.

Over the objections of counsel, the court permitted Mrs. McLaughlin, the first witness, to recount LaCoco's confession to the jury before granting LaCoco a preliminary hearing on the question whether his confessions were voluntary. At the preliminary hearing, LaCoco testified that, upon being arrested, Fitzgerald kicked him twice and struck him in the jaw and that, after being brought to O'Connell's office, 'O'Connell and Fitzgerald took him into the adjoining small room and, with his hands handcuffed behind his back, interrogated him and punched him in the stomach for forty-five minutes until he lost consciousness. He added that a ten-minute respite was followed by another thirty minutes of the same treatment and a second loss of consciousness. Afterwards, while in O'Connell's main office, Kennedy discharged a shotgun and blew out a window. LaCoco further testified that, after repeating his innocence, O'Connell, Fitzgerald and Hanrahan and several unidentified officers removed him to the eleventh floor where they strung him up, with his wrists handcuffed behind his back and his feet barely touching the floor, and beat him into unconsciousness five times in about five hours, with blows to the stomach and on the back of the neck. According to defendant LaCoco, upon being revived for the fifth time, he told them he would confess to anything and that he made his later confessions on information supplied by O'Connell and in fear of additional beatings. On cross-examination, LaCoco stated the beatings resulted in nothing more than red splotches on his stomach and he did not see fit to call this condition to the attention of the examining physician when he entered the county jail two days later.

The police officers gave an entirely different version as to the circumstances surrounding LaCoco's original confession. O'Connell testified that he, alone, took LaCoco into the small room and that, after informing LaCoco of the extent of their knowledge of his recent activities, LaCoco voluntarily made an oral confession and named his accomplices. O'Connell was corroborated by officers Kennedy and John S. Glon who remained in the main office and listened to the conversation with earphones. Both Fitzgerald and Hanrahan denied that LaCoco had been mistreated when arrested, and all the officers testified that Fitzgerald did not accompany O'Connell and LaCoco into the small room and that LaCoco was in the small room for only thirty or forty-five minutes. Kennedy admitted he accidentally discharged a jammed shotgun in O'Connell's office, but he and all the others, O'Connell, Fitzgerald and Hanrahan, in particular, denied that LaCoco was beaten in the small room off O'Connell's office or that he was later taken to the eleventh floor and strung up for four or five hours until he confessed. At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, the court ruled that LaCoco's confessions were admissible in evidence.

At the same preliminary hearing, testimony was also presented as to whether LaCoco's confessions were admissible against Wagner. Wagner testified that when he first heard LaCoco confess to Kennedy he stated LaCoco was a maniac and crazy and it appeared that he was trying to get somebody in trouble. Several detectives testified that, on this occasion, Wagner called LaCoco foul names and said, 'How did I ever get tied up with a dirty stool pigeon like that,' or words to this effect. As to all subsequent confessions, wagner and LaCoco agreed that Wagner always said LaCoco was crazy, while witnesses for the prosecution, both police officers and civilians, were in substantial agreement that Wagner, when asked about LaCoco's statement, replied, 'You heard what he said.' The court also ruled that LaCoco's confession was admissible against Wagner.

The testimony on these disputed issues heard by the jury was substantially the same as that given at the preliminary hearing. While only O'Connell and Fitzgerald testified as to the voluntary character of LaCoco's original confession, the prosecution used additional civilian witnesses to testify as to LaCoco's subsequent confessions and Wagner's remarks in connection therewith. LaCoco and Wagner appeared as witnesses in their own behalf and repeated their testimony previously given out of the presence of the jury.

The only other testimony of importance was that relating to identification. Suftko, Sr., stated the one man he noticed was short and small. His son, who had the best opportunity to observe all...