People v. Fort
| Decision Date | 18 September 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 34795,34795 |
| Citation | 153 N.E.2d 26,14 Ill.2d 491 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Luster FORT, Plaintiff in Error. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Aaron H. Payne, Chicago, for plaintiff in error.
Latham Castle, Atty. Gen., and Benjamin S. Adamowski, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach, Decatur, William H. South, Carmi, Francis X. Riley, and John J. Stamos, Chicago, of counsel), for the People.
The plaintiff in error, Luster Fort, hereinafter called defendant, was indicted in the criminal court of Cook County for the crime of forcible rape. Upon trial by jury he was found guilty, and sentence was fixed at 199 years in the penitentiary. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment having been overruled, this writ of error is prosecuted to review the record. The contentions are that the evidence is insufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the State's Attorney made inflammatory and prejudicial remarks in his argument to the jury.
The complaining witness, a girl 15 years of age, resided with her mother in a one-room apartment on the fourth floor of a tenement or apartment-hotel building in Chicago. The room was about 17 feet by 17 feet in size and was furnished with a bed, dresser, radio combination set, television set, a couch, a large chair, a refrigerator, table and stove. The mother, Ella Mae Johnson, testified that on January 31, 1957, at 4:30 P.M. she was in the room watching television with her two daughters: Verla, the complaining witness, and Sandra, six months of age. Verla was sitting in a large chair, and her mother was sitting on the couch holding the baby. There was one door, leading from the hallway into the apartment, and the widnows were located in the opposite wall. At 4:30 o'clock a buzzer sounded, indicating a call for the apartment. The telephone was located at the end of the hall outside the room, on the other side of the stairs and around a corner. The mother told Verla to answer the telephone, and Verla accordingly went out of the room, turning off the lock on the door as she left.
About a minute later a man entered the room. He held a gun in his hand, his private parts were exposed, and he wore a scarf covering the lower part of his face from the nose to the chin. He approached the foot of the bed, saying 'put the baby on the bed and I mean business.' The man had closed and locked the door, and stood about six feet from the witness, pointing the gun at her. She replied 'there is no one at home and I don't have any money.' She then arose, walked around the man and had just placed the baby on the middle of the bed when the doorknob rattled. It was Verla, returning from the telephone. The man then stepped behind the door, unlocked it and pulled it open. As Verla started to enter he snatched her by the arm. She started screaming, whereupon he turned up the volume on the radio, and told her: 'take your clothes off.' He ordered the mother to lie on the floor by the television with her face down. As the witness complied she heard Verla, still screaming, fall on the bed, and heard the bed moving up and down.
The witness was lying on the floor near the foot of the bed, where she could reach up and touch it. She raised from the floor on her arm and observed the man and Verla on the bed near its foot. Verla was on her back and the man was on top of her. The witness then pulled the scarf from the man's face, whereupon he jumped up and started shooting her. She had turned over on her right side with her left hand up. A bullet hit her under the left arm about six inches, a second shot wounded her on the left shoulder, and a third struck her left elbow. She had a plain view of the man, who was standing only about a foot away, and she was looking at his face when he shot her. She did not recall much of what happened thereafter. After hearing the man go out the door, the next thing she remembered was going down the hall, helped by her daughter, who was screaming. They went to the next door apartment of one Theresa LeFlore, who then notified the police. Officers thereafter appeared and took her and Verla to a hospital, where she remained for two weeks. Ella Mae Johnson further testified that there was still daylight at the time of the occurrence; that the intruder had a thin moustache; that he wore a brown leather jacket, dark gray trousers, and a brown hat; and that the scarf was a red plaid one.
The complaining witness, Verla Johnson, testified that at about 4:30 P.M. on January 31, 1957, she went to answer the telephone in response to the buzzer, remaining out of the room about two minutes. She saw no one in the hall on her way to or from the telephone. Upon returning to the room she found the door was locked, and she rattled the knob and knocked. Someone unlocked the door; and after taking about two steps she was grabbed and pulled into the room by a man with a scarf around his mouth. He were a leather jacket, had a gun in his hand, and his privates were exposed. The witness screamed, and the intruder turned the radio up loud, telling her to get over on the bed. When she remained standing, he grabbed her by the arm, pushed her on the bed, and told her to pull off her clothes. She did nothing. He then pulled up her skirt, tore off her panties, got on top of her and engaged in sexual intercourse. When her mother reached up and snatched the scarf from his face, he jumped up and started shooting. Verla testified further that the assailant fired three shots at her mother, and then 'turned toward me and shot me;' that she was shot three times: once in the right shoulder, another striking the middle finger of her right hand, and a third entering her neck on the right side. After the shooting the attacker unlocked the door and ran out of the room, whereupon Verla got up and helped her mother up. They went into the hall screaming, and observed the neighbor, Mrs. LeFlore, looking out of the door next to their room. Upon being asked what happened, they told her they had been shot. Verla was taken, with her mother, to the hospital, and remained there eight days.
Theresa LeFlore testified that on the day in question at about 4:30 P.M. she heard two shots and shortly thereafter heard screaming in the hall; that after four or five minutes she went to the door and saw Verla and Mrs. Johnson. They were bleeding. In response to her inquiries, Mrs. Johnson told her that they had been shot, that she did not know the name of the assailant and had never seen him before, and that he had tried to rape her daughter. The witness took them into her apartment and called the police.
It further appears from the evidence that on February 8 at about 9:50 P.M. officers Harris and Shelton called for Verla at her home and took her to the police station, where she viewed a lineup of six men including the defendant. She thereupon identified the defendant as the man who had committed the offense. He was wearing a leather jacket in the lineup. Officer Harris then took Verla and the defendant to the hospital where the mother, Ella Mae Johnson, was still confined. He first entered the room alone, informing Mrs. Johnson he had a man outside and wanted to know if she could identify him. He then went out and returned with the defendant handcuffed to officer Shelton. Upon seeing the defendant Mrs. Johnson exclaimed: 'Oh, my God, that is the man.' In the courtroom both Verla and her mother positively identified the defendant as the man who had attacked them.
Defendant did not testify in his own behalf, but introduced the testimony of his wife and several other persons in support of an alibi. Defendant's wife testified that on January 31, 1957, he left for work at about 6:20 A.M., returned home between 3:45 and 4:00 P.M., and remained in the house until the following day; that in the afternoon they received an important telephone call from a Miss Neal, in the office of a Gary, Indiana, company with whom they had been negotiating for the purchase of a home and that defendant then talked to Miss Neal on the telephone. On the following morning the witness and defendant went to Gary, Indiana, to attend to matters concerning the purchase. The witness further testified that she later went to the Gary telephone company and secured a toll statement of the telephone call made to her home on the afternoon of January 31, 1957. The statement or slip was identified and admitted into evidence. The witness testified further that on January 31, 1957, the defendant wore a leather jacket and blue jeans to work; and that he did not own any gray pants or any kind of scarf or firearm.
Two of defendant's co-workers at his place of employment testified he was present on January 31, 1957, and worked the usual shift from 7 A.M. until 3 P.M. Neither witness knew his whereabouts after 3 P.M. on that day. One Bennie Lee Allen testified that he was at defendant's home on January 31, 1957, from 4:00 P.M. until some time between 6:30 and 7:00 P.m.; that when he arrived the defendant and the latter's brother-in-law were playing checkers, and that defendant did not leave the house at any time thereafter. To the same effect is the testimony of Betty Frierson, who roomed at the home of defendant and was a friend of the family for many years, and the testimony of Zennifer Bond, brother of defendant's wife, each of whom was present during the afternoon and evening.
In attacking the sufficiency of the evidence, defendant argues that since the assailant entered the Johnson apartment almost immediately after Verla had left to answer the telephone, it is improbable that she would not have seen him in the hallway; that in view of the time of day and the large unmber of rooms in the building it could be expected that many people would be coming into it from work, some of whom would have noticed a person in the described condition with a gun in his hand, yet no one was produced who...
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