People v. Erlandson

• Decision Date: 17 April 1935
• Docket Number: No. 22855.,22855.
• Citation: People v. Erlandson , 360 Ill. 214, 195 N.E. 670 (Ill. 1935)
• Parties: PEOPLE v. ERLANDSON.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

360 Ill. 214

195 N.E. 670

PEOPLE

v.ERLANDSON.

No. 22855.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 17, 1935.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Walter P. Steffen, Judge.

Harold Erlandson was convicted of robbery while armed with a gun, and he brings error.

Affirmed.

Harold L. Levy and Edward M. Keating, both of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Otto Kerner, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and J. J. Neiger, of Springfield (Edward E. Wilson, Henry E. Seyfarth, and John T. Gallagher, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

STONE, Justice.

Plaintiff in error was convicted in the criminal court of Cook county of robbing Jennie Wilk of $230 while armed with a gun. The errors assigned resolve themselves into one contention; that plaintiff in error was not proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The complaining witness, her daughter Charlotte, and Nick Riato, her employee, testified that on several occasions prior to November 30, 1932, the date of the crime charged, plaintiff in error had been at the home of Jennie Wilk. On the last previous call he had left a gallon of alcohol. On the day of the alleged crime, about 11 o'clock in the morning, he and two other men entered the house. Jennie Wilk testified that she paid him $8 for the gallon of alcohol he had left on the previous call; that plaintiff in error and one of the other men with him had guns; that Nick Riato and her daughter Charlotte were taken into a bedroom by plaintiff in error and required to remain there while he searched the house. Jennie Wilk testified that while she was seated on a chair one of the men said she had something in her stocking; that plaintiff in error approached with a black-jack in his hand and said they were going to put her to sleep and grabbed her money, and, taking some silver dollars from a cabinet, and three men left, after one of them pulled the telephone box from the wall and broke the wires. She testified they said, ‘Don't try to follow us or call the police.’ Jennie Wilk's testimony was corroborated by that of her daughter, Charlotte, and Riato.

Police officers testified that plaintiff in error admitted to them that he took money from Jennie Wilk, but he said it was not robbery, but that the money he got from her was money she owned him for alcohol he had previously delivered.

Plaintiff in error was the only witness in his own behalf. He testified that he sold alcohol to Jennie Wilk's husband, delivering it sometimes once and sometimes three times a week; that he delivered from four to forty cans at a time at $9 a can, and that Wilk owed him for eighty cans and had paid him $220, leaving a balance of $500. He testified that he took Nick Scalise and another fellow with him...