People v. Freeman

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PER CURIAM.
• Citation: People v. Freeman, 244 Ill. 590, 91 N.E. 708 (Ill. 1910)
• Decision Date: 21 April 1910
• Parties: PEOPLE v. FREEMAN.

244 Ill. 590

91 N.E. 708

PEOPLE

v.FREEMAN.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 21, 1910.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; William H. McSurely, Judge.

London Freeman was convicted of crime, and he brings error. Reversed.

Lucien H. Barkdull, for plaintiff in error.

W. H. Stead, Atty, Gen., John E. W. Wayman, State's Atty., and June C. Smith (Zach Hofheimer, of counsel), for the People.

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiff in error was tried at the December term, 1908, of the criminal court of Cook county for taking improper liberties with a female child, under an indictment based on paragraph 42ha of the Criminal Code (Hurd's Rev. St. 1908, p. 716). He was found guilty and sentenced to the penitentiary. This writ of error has been sued out to review the record of the criminal court.

Plaintiff in error was 32 years of age at the time of the alleged crime. He worked at painting and decorating during the busy season and was employed as a porter in a barber shop at other times. From March, 1908, until arrested for this offense, he roomed and boarded in the flat of Viola Allen, a widow, at 5038 State street, Chicago. Mrs. Allen was the mother of Odessa Allen, the prosecuting witness herein, a child about eight years old. The mother testified that July 23, 1908, while washing her family clothes, she noticed that the child's drawers were stained with a mattery substance, and immediately questioned Odessa about it. Thereafter, the same day, she saw the plaintiff in error and told him what her daughter had stated, and he denied having touched the child. Plaintiff in error testified that Mrs. Allen told him of the condition of the drawers, and that she had questioned her daughter and asked her if any little boys had been fooling or playing with her, and that the child said, ‘No’; that Mrs. Allen stated that she then told Odessa she knew better, and unless she (Odessa) told the truth she would get a whipping; and that then Odessa said it was plaintiff in error. Plaintiff in error denied that he had ever harmed or trified with Odessa. The same afternoon the mother took the daughter to her family physician, next door, and he made an examination and found the child's private parts swollen, inflamed, and discharging a mucopurulent matter. This docter testified that he told the mother the tittle girl was suffering from vaginitis, a common condition among female children of tender age, due to uncleanness; that that statement seemed to anger the mother, who left his office abruptly; that during this visit he told the mother not to charge any one with crime unless she was sure; that he took some of the pus from the child's private parts and examined it and found no gonorrheal germs. Thereafter, the same day, Mrs. Allen swore out a warrant, and plaintiff in error was arrested on his return from work in the evening. The prosecuting witness, Odessa, testified that on July 21, 1908, plaintiff in error called her into his room in her mother's house, lifted her onto his lap, and put his hand under her clothes. ‘Then he unbuttoned my drawers. I saw his private person at that time, and he then put his private person into my person.’ She further testified that she had not played with any little boys, and that she had no pain in her private parts. Five days after the plaintiff in error was arrested-that is, July 28, 1908-Mrs. Allen took her daughter to the city physician for examination. He testified that he found the girl's private parts swollen and inflamed, with a mucopurulent discharge from the vagina; that he examined some of the pus under the microscope and found the gonorrheal germ present, and could say from said examination that the girl was then suffering from gonorrhea. Plaintiff in error testified that he never had gonorrhea. There was testimony to the effect that the plaintiff in error had always borne a good character. It appeared on the cross-examination of the mother that she had made the statement that she would not have had plaintiff in error arrested if her brother-in-law had not sent her word that if she did not do so he (the brother-in-law) would have her (Mrs. Allen) arrested. There was also testimony tending to show that the daughter had not always been truthful with the mother. This was substantially all the testimony heard.

It is argued that the evidence is not of such a character as to justify a conviction, This court is committed to the fullest extent to the doctrine that the jury are the judges of the facts and the weight of the evidence in criminal cases. It is the duty, however, of the court to carefully review the evidence, and where a conviction is based upon unsatisfactory evidence, or where, after it has been carefullyexamined and considered, there remains such a grave and serious doubt of the guilt of the accused as to lead to the conclusion that the verdict of the jury is the result of passion or prejudice and not of that calm deliberation that the law requires, then it is the duty of this court to so find. Keller v. People, 204 Ill. 604, 68 N. E. 512;People v. Bolik, 241 Ill. 394, 89 N. E. 700. The offense charged in the indictment, of taking immoral, improper, and indecent liberties with a small child, is a most detestable one, and the courts, therefore, should see to it that the law punishing such crimes is strictly and impartially enforced.

It is argued that the city physician's testimony that Odessa Allen had gonorrhea tends to corroborate her testimony as to what plaintiff in error did to her. There is no other evidence that can even be claimed to corroborate the testimony of the prosecuting witness. No other person testifies that she was in plaintiff in error's room on July 21, 1908, or at any other time, and the plaintiff in error denies her presence there. The medical authorities all agree that female children under 10 years of age,...