People v. Crenshaw

• Citation: 155 N.E.2d 599,15 Ill.2d 458
• Decision Date: 23 January 1959
• Docket Number: No. 34814,34814
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. James CRENSHAW et al., Plaintiffs in Error.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 599

155 N.E.2d 599

15 Ill.2d 458

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. James CRENSHAW et al., Plaintiffs in Error.

No. 34814.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 23, 1959.

Howard R. Barron, Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Latham Castle, Atty. Gen., Benjamin S. Adamowski, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach, Decatur, William H. South, Carmi, Francis X. Riley and Edwin A. Strugala, Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

DAILY, Chief Justice.

An indictment returned to the criminal court of Cook County in July, 1953, charged Richard Riles, James Crenshaw, and Judson Griffin with the crime of armed robbery. After waiving a jury trial each man was found to be guilty of the charge upon hearing before the court. Crenshaw was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of 10 to 15 years, while sentences of 5 to 10 years were imposed upon Riles and Griffin. Under the provisions of Rule 65-1(2) of this court, we have granted a joint petition of Griffin and Crenshaw for a writ of error to review the judgment of conviction. See: Ill.Rev.Stat.1957, chap. 110, par. 101.65-1(2); People v. Griffin, 9 Ill.2d 164, 137 N.E.2d 485.

Undisputed facts show that a retail store located at 1019 E. Forty-third Street in the city of Chicago was robbed by three Negro men on Saturday, July 18, 1953, at about 4:15 P.M. Present in the establishment were Richard Erman, a part owner, Harry Clorfine, a sales clerk, and James Burks, a 15-year-old stock boy. Clarence McGowan, also 15 years old, entered the store during the course of the robbery. The four persons named were tied up by the robbers and succeeded in freeing themselves only after the felons had departed taking money from the cash register and a small quantity of merchandise. Police were summoned and, apparently on the basis of information obtained from the eyewitnesses, officer Patrick J. Rafferty prepared an offense report which stated the crime had been committed by three colored men and described two of them in detail.

Six days after the robbery, on July 24, 1953, officer Rafferty observed the three defendants in a vacant lot at Thirty-ninth Street and Lake Park Avenue and, after questioning them, placed them under arrest and took them to a police station. At the time, according to Rafferty, Riles was wearing a tan sport shirt and Griffin was clad in three or four of the items of clothing noted in the offense report. After first looking at what Rafferty described as 'the books of likely complaint,' he requested Erman and Clorfine to come to the station. The two men complied the same day and Erman, who testified he was shown a line-up of four Negro men, identified the three defendants as the men who had robbed the store. At the trial he testified that Griffin was then wearing the same jacket he had worn on the day of the crime. Clorfine, who viewed the men apart from Erman and at all times admitted that he saw only two of the robbers when the crime was committed, was shown only the three defendants at the police station and identified Riles and Crenshaw as the robbers he had seen. At the trial both men made courtroom identification of the respective men they had pointed out to the police. Defendants, for their part, at all times denied their guilt.

Burks and McGowan, the two 15-year-old eyewitnesses, were not called upon to make identification at the police station but did appear as witnesses at the trial. Burks, after stating it had been a long time since the robbery, (five months), testified he could not identify the defendants. McGowan, who was called as a court's witness, testified that two of the robbers were short and that one was tall, but could only state that Griffin looked like the tall man. Although defendants attach great weight to the failure of the youthful witnesses to identify them, we have long been committed to the principle that the testimony of one witness as to identification, if positive and the witness credible, is sufficient to convict even though the testimony is contradicted by the accused. People v. Burts, 13 Ill.2d 36, 147 N.E.2d 281; People v. Williams, 12 Ill.2d 80, 145 N.E.2d 29; People v. Wilson, 1 Ill.2d 178, 115 N.E.2d 250; People v. Cullotta, 376 Ill. 333, 33 N.E.2d 601. Here both Clorfine and Erman made positive identification of Riles and Crenshaw, and Erman positively identified Griffin, only six days after the crime was committed. Nor, in view of their ages, do we see anything unusual or sinister in the circumstance that Burks and McGowan were not called to the police station, particularly when it appears that the adult eyewitnesses had made positive and unhesitating identification of the guilty persons.

At the trial Erman testified that Riles and Crenshaw were first to enter the store and that he walked to a clothes rack with the two men at his side when Riles asked to see a jacket. As the witness turned around from the rack, Riles and drawn a gun and ordered him to lie down on the floor behind a counter. When he complied Riles bound him in such a position that he was on his stomach with his face sideways and up, thus enabling him to see to the front. Suspended from the ceiling directly in front of Erman was a tie rack, about eight feet distant, and while prone on the floor he observed Griffin for a period of about thirty-five seconds as the latter removed a tie from the rack. It was stipulated in the record that Crenshaw was 58 years old, Griffin 24 years, and Riles 22, and it appears from the evidence that Griffin was tall in stature as compared with his companions. In this respect Erman testified it was the tall man who came to the tie rack, and that Crenshaw was short and an older man. Throughout his testimony Erman repeatedly stated he was not certain about the clothing worn by the robbers, other than a powder-blue jacket worn by Griffin, but testified he was positive about their faces and remained unshaken in this conviction despite lengthy and critical cross-examination by three different counsel each representing one of the defendants.

Clorfine's testimony was that he saw Riles and Crenshaw enter the store and started to wait on them, but returned to the rear of the store when Erman reached them first. Shortly thereafter he saw Crenshaw, whom he described as a short and older man, looking at him through a clothes rack and, at the same time, observed Riles with a gun in his hand. Crenshaw then put a knife at his back, saying: 'Don't look at me,' tied him up, and took some money from his pocket. Later, according to the witness, Burks was also tied up, his head being bound to Clorfine's feet, and McGowan was then tied to Burks after the former had entered the store and asked to see the boss.

The stock boy, Burks, testified he saw two men enter the store, that he later saw one of the men with a gun and the other a knife; that the man with the knife was a short man, and that it was the latter man who had tied up the witness and Clorfine. He also stated that he saw the man with the gun tying up Erman but said he was looking at the gun and paid no attention to the man's face. as previously related, he testified he could not identify any of the defendants as the men in question.

McGowan, who stated he was an eighth grade pupil, testified he saw three men as he entered the store, describing them as a tall man by the door, a short man by the cash register, and a short man at the rear of the store. He asked the man at the register where the boss was and was told he was out to lunch. The witness stated he waited for 15 to 20 minutes and was about to leave when the man at the register told him to take a necktie 'to the other man in the store.' When he complied, 'the short man at the rear of the store' tied him up with Burks and Clorfine. Five minutes later McGowan heard the men leave the store, freed himself and the others, and remained to answer questions by the police. He testified he could identify the three men if he saw them again, and when asked if the men were in the courtroom, he stated: 'The tall one, (indicating Griffin,) he looks like the one in the store. The other two, they look like them. I couldn't recognize the other two.'

Defendants' defense consisted of a denial of the crime and of evidence establishing alibis. Griffin testified that, at the time of the robbery, he and Crenshaw were at the home of Griffin's grandmother, located at Pauline and Washbourne in the city of Chicago, miles from the scene of the crime. He related that he and Crenshaw had been en route to Seventeenth and Lake streets to meet a friend, James Williams, when they met Griffin's aunt who then informed him that his grandparents were ill and persuaded them to visit the grandparents' house some two blocks away. According to his further testimony, he and Crenshaw arrived for the visit about 4:00 to 4:10 P.M., remained for forty minutes, then returned to Twelfth Street where they had a sandwich before leaving for home. Crenshaw testified to the same facts, corroborating Griffin in all material respects. Although Riles is not a party to this proceeding for review, he too gave testimony of an alibi and it is to be noted that it in no manner involved Griffin or Crenshaw. The only other witness for the defense, except for witnesses offered in support of Rile's alibi, was Griffin's mother who testified that her parents lived at 1703 W. Washbourne, and that they were not at the trial because both were very ill.

Seeking a reversal of the judgment of conviction, Griffin and Crenshaw contend primarily that the evidence of the prosecution, when considered with the evidence of an alibi, fails to establish their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. More specifically, it is urged that identification evidence of the prosecution's witnesses was vague, inconsistent and uncertain, that conditions at the time of the robbery did not afford the eyewitnesses an opportunity to make definite identification, and that the...