People v. Cullotta
| Decision Date | 15 April 1941 |
| Docket Number | No. 26073.,26073. |
| Citation | 376 Ill. 333,33 N.E.2d 601 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. CULLOTTA. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; William J. Lindsay, Judge.
Vincent J. Cullotta was convicted of robbery unarmed, and he brings error.
Affirmed.James M. Burke, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.
George F. Barrett, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and A. B. Dennis, of Springfield (Edward E. Wilson, John T. Gallagher, and Melvin S. Rembe, all of Chicago, of counsel), for defendant in error.
Vincent J. Cullotta was indicted in the criminal court of Cook county for robbery while armed with a pistol. He pleaded not guilty and waived a jury trial. The court, sitting without a jury, found him guilty of robbery unarmed and sentenced him to the State penitentiary for a term of not less than one nor more than twenty years. The cause is here by writ of error.
The sole question is whether there is suficient evidence identifying the defendant as the robber to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. On June 11, 1940, Harold Fenstermacher was robbed of $48.33 at about 5:15 P. M., while engaged in selling and delivering milk on Seventy-sixth street on the south side in Chicago. It was daylight. He testified that as he was leaning over to put empty jars in the rear part of his milk truck, someone poked a gun in his ribs, and he was told to turn around and keep quiet. The intruder directed him to drive the truck, then facing west on Seventy-sixth street, directly west to Exchange avenue, the next thoroughfare intersecting Seventy-sixth street, then to turn right on Exchange avenue and to turn right again into an alley. After going a short way due east in the alley, the witness was ordered to stop and hand over his money, which he did. At the robber's direction, Fenstermacher then drove to the intersection of the alley and Coles avenue, one block east of Exchange avenue. The robber stepped out, threw his straw hat into the truck and told the witness to turn left and go north on Coles avenue.
Fenstermacher testified that he was unable to get a good look at the robber while he was inside the truck, but observed he was wearing dark trousers, a blue lumber jacket and a light straw hat. However, as he turned left on Coles avenue, the witness stopped his truck, looked back, and saw the robber standing at the place he had stepped out from the milk wagon. When the robber made a gesture toward his pocket, the witness started his truck and went as far as Seventy-fifth place, where he turned around and came back on Coles avenue. He saw the robber approximately a sixth of a block down the alley, and drove toward him, yelling to attract attention. The robber ran into a back yard which fronted on Seventy-sixth street. The witness immediately drove on around to Seventy-sixth street and again saw the robber about the place where he could come through from the alley. The robber went back toward the alley and disappeared. Fenstermacher talked to some civilians who had gathered at the intersection of the alley and Coles avenue. He testified he then went a block east to South Shore Drive in search of the robber and saw defendant climbing a fence into a park next to the lake and noticed that he had removed his blue jacket. On his return to Coles avenue, the witness met three police officers in a squad car and described the robber to them as having dark hair and beard, wearing dark trousers and a light faded shirt, hatless and without a jacket. A few minutes later the officers brought the defendant to Fenstermacher, who identified him as the robber, after Cullotta had been asked to step outside the squad car. Later the same evening, at a ‘show up’ in the police station, Fenstermacher again identified the defendant as the person who held him up.
Thomas F. Walsh testified he was one of the police officers in the squad car who talked to Fenstermacher just after the robbery. After the conversation he proceeded from Seventy-sixth to Seventy-ninth street, running along the bushes and shrubbery in the park known as Rainbow Beach, which is about a half block from the lake. He boarded a street car standing at the end of Seventy-ninth street, found the defendant therein and arrested him. He testified that approximately thirty people were on the car and that defendant was in his shirt sleeves without hat or coat, although the temperature was around fifty degrees; and that the defendant was breathing and panting heavily and wiping perspiration from his face with his handkerchief.
At the time of the arrest, Cullotta had $74 in his wallet in bills of various denominations and $2.19 in coins. He was on parole under a former conviction for armed robbery, and had been out of employment two or three weeks. He told Walsh he was going to make a payment on his car, a 1940 Buick sedan, which he said was at home in the garage. Walsh testified the car was found parked on the west side of Coles avenue, between the north side of Seventy-sixth street and the alley where the robbery took place. The car had been left unlocked with the keys in the ignition. The witness further testified the defendant said his hat size was 6 7/8; that the straw hat which had been thrown into the truck and turned over to the police was of a like size and fitted the defendant.
Ruth Golden Brehm lived in a house which fronts Coles avenue and runs west along the north side of the alley where the robbery occurred. She testified that she saw a man running west in the alley about the time of the robbery; that he turned south into a yard west of the house; that this man was not the defendant; that one or two minutes later she saw the defendant running west in the alley; that when he got to her...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
People v. Crenshaw
... ... 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 ... ...
-
People v. Kilgore
...of the People's case and not on the weakness of the defendant's case. (People v. Widmayer, 402 Ill. 143, 83 N.E.2d 285; People v. Cullotta, 376 Ill. 333, 33 N.E.2d 601; People v. Washington, 327 Ill. 152, 158 N.E. 386.) The foregoing principle of law is a corollary of the presumption of inn......
-
People v. Hendron
...of the defendant and of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the evidence may be sufficient to sustain a conviction. People v. Cullotta, 376 Ill. 333, 33 N.E.2d 601;People v. Gasior, 359 Ill. 517, 195 N.E. 10;People v. Fortino, 356 Ill. 415, 190 N.E. 688. In the present case, the identifica......
-
People v. Van Scoyk
... ... At the outset, we feel that upon the entire record, the trial judge, as the trier of fact, was amply justified in believing the testimony of the police officers and rejecting that of defendant Van Scoyk. People v. Ulrich, 411 Ill. 316, 104 N.E.2d 263; People v. Cullotta, 376 Ill. 333, 33 N.E.2d 601. Based upon that testimony we think that the defense of entrapment is unavailable to defendant. From the testimony of the officers it is apparent that they neither seduced nor persuaded the defendant to engage in illicit activity. At most they afforded defendant an ... ...