People v. Doody

• Decision Date: 08 April 1931
• Docket Number: No. 20033.,20033.
• Citation: People v. Doody, 343 Ill. 194, 175 N.E. 436 (Ill. 1931)
• Parties: PEOPLE v. DOODY.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

343 Ill. 194

175 N.E. 436

PEOPLE

v.DOODY.

No. 20033.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 18, 1931.

Rehearing Denied April 8, 1931.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Otto Kerner, Judge.

William Doody was convicted of murder, and he brings error.

Reversed and remanded.

ORR, J., dissenting.Wm. Scott Stewart, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., John A. Swanson, State's Atty., of Chicago, J. J. Neiger, of Rock Island, and Joel C. Fitch, of Springfield (Edward E. Wilson, Grenville Beardsley, and John Holman, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

DUNN, J.

William Doody was convicted in the criminal court of Cook county of the murder of Charles Levy and sentenced to death.He has sued out a writ of error.

About 7:30 o'clock in the evening of Saturday, May 25, 1929, James Mikes, a captain of police of the city of Berwyn, called for Charles Levy, who was chief of police, at his home and they made a tour around the city in a Cadillac car, accompanied by Sergeants Robert Soldat and Thomas Bartanuk, policemen, and Earl Rathburn, brother-in-law of Levy.About 8:00 o'clock the desk sergenant at the police station received a telephone message that a Buick car was standing on Twenty-First street just west of Clarence avenue, and, if an officer was sent over there and lifted the hood up, he would find a stolen car.Motorcycle Officer Kresler came in and was ordered to go to the place indicated, where there was a suspicious car.The desk segeant also notified Mikes, who was driving the squad car in which was the chief, and that car was driven to the same place and met there Kresler, who then left.Nobody was in the Buick car.The party in the Cadillac car then drove to Twelfth street and Oak Park avenue, where Soldat had a Hupmobile car, which he got, and both cars were driven back to the Buick on Twenty-First street.The Hupmobile, in which were the chief and Soldat, was parked behind the Buick, both cars facing west on the north side of the street.The Buick was opposite the entrance of an apartment house, No. 6637.The Hupmobile was in front of another apartment house further east, No. 6633.Levy remained with Soldat in the Hupmobile, while the Cadillac, containing Mikes, Bartanuk, and Rathburn, was parked, facing north, about one hundred and fifty feet south of Twenty-First street in an alley intersecting Twenty-First street at a short distance west of the entrance to No. 6637.The ground on the south side of Twenty-First street opposite the two apartment buildings, between the alley and Clarence avenue, was vacant.On the west side of the alley were garages and fences.There were two street lights, about eighteen feet from the ground, on diagonally opposite corners of Twenty-First street and Clarence avenue, and two of the same description similarly located at Twenty-First street and Wesley avenue, the next street west of Clarence avenue.The vestibule of the apartment building at No. 6637 was lighted and two lights were attached to the building just outside the door, about twelve or fifteen feet from the Buick.

This was about 8:45 in the evening.After about twenty minutes two men came to the car and entered it—one from each side.Levy and Soldat immediately got out of their car and went to the Buick.The testimony as to what occurred there is contradictory.Soldat testified that Levy went to the left door of the Buick, while Soldat, with his revolver drawn, went to the right, opened the door with his left hand, pulled back his coat and said, ‘Police officers; stick them up’; and both men raised their hands.The man nearest to him started to lower his hands, and Soldat Struck him over the head with his revolver, saying, ‘Keep them up or I will drill you!’He ordered the man to get out, and he did so.He then ordered the man to turn his back, put his revolver against the man's back, and searched him, finding a loaded 45 Colt automatic in his trousers, which Soldat put in his pocket.He then got the man by the nape of his neck, stooped to search him further, and while he was stooped several shots were fired from the left side of the car and Levy called, ‘Halt!Halt!’Levy exclaimed, ‘I got him, Bob,’ and a fraction of a minute later there was more shooting.Shots came from the vacant lot to the south and Levy cried out, ‘Bob, they got me.’Soldat saw a figure go through the alley, and when it got about 125 feet from the crosswalk two shots were fired in Soldat's direction from this figure and then somebody fired at it from the squad car.Prior to that no shots had been fired from the alley.Soldat crossed the street and found Levy lying on his back in the parkway with two revolvers in his hands.He was taken to the hospital and was found to have a bullet wound in the abdomen, a little above the waist, which had pierced the liver and lodged in the first lumbar vertebra.He died two days later of peritonitis, the result of this wound.Soldat took the other man to the lockup and returned to the scene and made a search, in which he found a hat lying in the vacant lot, about thirty-five or forty feet south of Twenty-First street, near a hole eighteen or twenty inches deep and eight or ten feet east of the alley.His revolver, a 38 Colt, was not fired that night.

The other man in the car whom Soldat arrested and took to the lockup was Edward Maciejewski, and he was indicted jointly with Doody, but a severance was granted and Doody was tried separately.Maciejewski testified on the trial.He was called by the prosecution and was asked who was with him in the Buick car when he was arrested, and answered that he knew him by the name of Dowdy.To the question, ‘Is he here in the court room?’he answered, ‘No, I don't see him.’Thereupon the state's attorney stated to the court that he was surprised by the testimony of the witness, giving his reasons, and asked leave to cross-examine.The defendant objected, but the court overruled the objection and permitted the state's attorney to cross-examine.The state's attorney cross-examined Maciejewski in regard to his acquaintance with Dowdy and where the witness had been for some time before his arrest, over numerous objections by the defendant.When the defendant's counsel in his cross-examination asked questions seeking to bring out the witness' version of what occurred at the time of his arrest and the accompanying circumstances, the court sustained objections, stating that counsel for the defense could not ask the witness anything about the shooting on cross-examination.After the close of the people's case and the introduction of the two witnesses called by the defendant, counsel for the defendant asked leave to continue his cross-examination of Maciejewski, and the court allowed the witness to be called for further cross-examination.His testimony was that about a minute after he got into the Buick two men came up on the right side of the car, pointed pistols at him, and profanely ordered him to get out of the car.One of the men was Soldat, who had one pistol, the other having two.Soldat did not exhibit his star or say anything about being a police officer.Maciejewski got out of the car and Dowdy broke out of the other side and the man with two guns got in front of the car and shot over the hood at Dowdy and the latter fell down.The man with two guns said, ‘I got him,’ and ran around the car, and Soldat pushed Maciejewski over and fired two shots through the doors, both of which were swung open.There was a lot of shooting from the south and west, and when the ‘general shooting’ started Soldat grabbed Maciejewski and told him to get down behind the car.He and Soldat got down and stayed there two or three minutes and then got up.The shooting ceased for a minute and the man across the street was hallooing that he was shot and Soldat dragged Maciejewski over there.He told Soldat to help the man, but Soldat instead kept abusing him.Maciejewski further testified that neither he nor Dowdy had any pistols or fired any shots.Doody did not testify.

It is claimed that the evidence was insufficient to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the man at the wheel in the Buick car was Doody, the defendant.In addition to what has been given of his testimony, Soldat testified that as he opened the door the defendant was leaning forward, inserting the key in the ignition lock, that the dashboard lights were lighted, and as he opened the door the lights in the back of the car flashed up, one in each corner.Maciejewski's account of what occurred was different and the two accounts were contradictory.They cannot both be true, and we cannot say that the jurors were not justified in believing Soldat's statement of what occurred there instead of Maciejewski's, and in believing that there was sufficient light for Soldat to see the occupant of the car and that the circumstances were such as to impress his features on Soldat so vividly as to enable him to recognize and identify him when he was arrested a few weeks later.This is a case where the opportunity to see and to hear the witnesses as they testified gave the jurors a great advantage in determining the weight of their testimony over a reviewing court, which has before it only the cold record.Moreover, Soldat's identification of Doody was corroborated by the testimony of Mrs. Lilian Kahler, at whose home at 5504 West Jackson boulevard the plaintiff in error was living when he was arrested, on August 13, 1929.She testified that the plaintiff in error came to her home on July 9 and under the name of John Mason rented a room from her at $50 a month.About two or three weeks before his arrest a solicitor came to the door with whom Mrs. Kahler talked at the door.When she came back the plaintiff in error asked her who he was.She told him they were only solicitors.He said he thought they were coppers, and if they had been there would have been some shooting, and if there had been any...