People v. Glanton

• Decision Date: 21 October 1975
• Docket Number: Nos. 56466,56469,56468,s. 56466
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Michael GLANTON et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 30

338 N.E.2d 30

33 Ill.App.3d 124

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Michael GLANTON et al., Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 56466, 56468, 56469.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Second Division.

Oct. 21, 1975.

[33 Ill.App.3d 126] Bernard Carey, State's Atty., Chicago, for plaintiff-appellee.

James J. Doherty, Public Defender of Cook County, Chicago, for Michael Glanton; Suzanne M. Xinos, Asst. Public Defender, Chicago, of counsel.

Charles Locker, Chicago, for Larry Washington.

Paul Bradley, First Deputy State Appellate Defender, Kenneth L. Jones, Asst. Appellate Defender, Chicago, for Leon Johnson.

HAYES, Justice.

Michael Glanton, Larry Washington, and Leon Johnson were tried together in a single bench trial for the murders by shooting of Clifford Reynolds and John Wilson on the night of 15 April 1969. Ill.Rev.Stat.1967, ch. 38, par. 9--1. Each defendant was represented by his own separate attorney and pursued separate, though partially overlapping, defenses. All three defendants were convicted. Glanton and Johnson were sentenced to imprisonment for not less than 40 years nor more than 100 years; Washington was sentenced to imprisonment for not less than 50 years nor more than 100 years. From these convictions each defendant took his own separate appeal, which became ready for oral argument at different times and was separately briefed and orally argued by separate appellate counsel. On this court's own motion, the three separate appeals have been consolidated for opinion.

In his appeal, each defendant has assigned as reversible error the denial of his pre-trial motion to suppress certain physical evidence, namely, three guns which the State proposed to introduce into evidence as the murder weapons: a .32 caliber revolver, a pump-action shotgun, and a bolt-action shotgun. The grounds for the motion of each defendant were the same: the said physical evidence had been seized: 1) in an illegal warrantless search of a garage to which the police had been led on two occasions: first by one John Edward Payton for the seizure of the revolver, and then by defendant Johnson for the seizure of the two shotguns hidden under floorboards inside the garage; and 2) that Johnson had led the At the hearing on the motion, Washington testified that he was arrested without a warrant and that the garage was under his control. Glanton testified that he was arrested without a warrant while doing nothing illegal at the time. Johnson testified that he was arrested without a warrant while doing nothing illegal at the time; that John Edward Payton, who was with the arresting officers and who had directed Johnson to put the shotguns in the garage, directed him to take the police to the guns, whereupon Investigating Officer William Nolan had said that, if Johnson did not do so, he (Nolan) was going to drive at a high rate of speed on the Congress Expressway and throw Johnson out of the speeding car; and that he had then taken the police to the garage and showed them where the shotguns were. For the State, Officer Nolan was the only witness. He testified merely that he had arrested Washington without a warrant, and had been present at the arrests of Glanton and Johnson; that Johnson had then taken him to a garage in which he had found the two shotguns. The court denied the motions of the defendants on the grounds that none of the defendants had established any property interest in the garage (the allegation by Washington of control of the garage was an unsupported conclusion); none had established the absence of probable cause for his arrest so as to demonstrate that the arrest was illegal; Johnson had not testified that Nolan's alleged threat of physical harm had causally coerced him into taking the officers to the garage.

police to the shotguns as the proximate result of his own illegal warrantless arrest, so that the shotguns were 'fruit of the poisonous tree'. Wong Sun v. United States (1963), 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441.

Portions of the trial testimony of Officer Nolan and his partner, Officer Frank Bertucci, and of Chicago Police Youth Officer Ronald Gleeson bear on the arrests of defendants and on the search of the garage and serve to complete the obviously inadequate testimony of Officer Nolan (as to the existence of probable cause for the arrests) at the hearing on the motion to suppress the guns as physical evidence. For convenience, we summarize here those portions of their trial testimony. Bertucci testified that, on the morning of 16 April 1969, he was assigned with his partner, Officer Nolan, to investigate two homicides which had occurred the previous night. He and Nolan went immediately to the scene which was an alley alongside the railroad tracks in the vicinity of South Hamlin and South Avers Avenue in Chicago. ¹ There he saw the two victims lying dead alongside the railroad tracks. In routine questioning of persons in the area, one Perry Roe told him about a group of neighborhood youths, called the Cermak Deuces, whose leader was John Edward Payton. Further questioning led him to visit defendant Washington, a member of the group, at the latter's place of work about 10:30 A.M. He told Washington that the police had information that he had been involved in a fight between two groups of youths the day before, and he (Bertucci) wanted to question Washington about the matter. Washington agreed to accompany him to the police station which constituted the headquarters of Area 4 Homicide, and did so. Before Bertucci questioned Washington at the police station, he talked to John Edward Payton and The foregoing is a complete summary of all the testimony relating to the arrest of each defendant and to the seizure of the three guns. As noted above, this summary includes not only all the testimony given at the hearing on the pre-trial motion to suppress the guns, but also the relevant trial testimony of the police officers involved. We shall consider the contention of each defendant that the denial of the motions to suppress constituted reversible error after we have concluded our recital of the facts, which we now resume.

                one Allen Holmes.  Pursuant to these conversations, Bertucci, acting without a warrant, informed Washington that he was under arrest for murder; he also informed Washington of his constitutional rights, but did not question Washington at that time.  Washington said nothing except to deny any involvement in the homicides.  2  The apparent reason for delaying the interrogation of Washington was that, as Officer Nolan testified, John Edward Payton had told Nolan that one of the three murder weapons could be found on the roof of a garage.  Acting on that information, Bertucci and Nolan went with Payton to the garage which the latter pointed out (located at about 2217 South Avers Avenue) and recovered the revolver on the roof.  On their return, they were driving along West Cermak Road at about 2:00 P.M. when they saw a Youth Officers' car from Area 4 with Chicago Police Youth Officers Gleeson and Sullivan standing talking to Glanton and Johnson.  As Youth Officer Gleeson testified, the two Youth Officers had just then temporarily detained Glanton and Johnson because they were then in the company of a suspected truant.  Bertucci and Nolan pulled up, and Bertucci arrested Glanton and Johnson without a warrant.  Bertucci testified that he informed Glanton and Johnson that the charge was murder and then informed them of their constitutional rights.  Thereupon Johnson asked if he could speak to their 'chief', John Edward Payton.  When Payton was brought over, he said to Johnson: 'I tricked you, man, told them where the guns are.'  Officer [33 Ill.App.3d 129] Nolan's version of this conversation was that Payton told Johnson that he (Payton) had 'flipped' on everybody, and that Johnson should tell the police everything, including where the guns were, because the police knew most of it already.  An objection by Glanton to the admissibility against him of the conversation between Payton and Johnson was sustained.  Youth Officer Gleeson testified that he then took Glanton to Area 4 Homicide.  Officer Bertucci testified that Johnson then directed Nolan and himself to the same garage which they had previously visited with John Edward Payton and in which Johnson concededly had to property interest; that, without a search warrant, all three entered the garage and Johnson pointed out the two shotguns hidden under floorboards, and the officer seized the shotguns.  Johnson said that he had had the bolt-action shotgun and Glanton had had the pump-action shotgun; the statement as to Glanton was stricken.  The officers then returned with Johnson to the police station, where Bertucci re-advised Johnson of his constitutional rights and then proceeded to question Johnson
                

Each defendant was alleged to have made an oral inculpatory statement to the investigating officers. Each moved to suppress his statement. These motions to suppress We will now summarize the evidence at the trial exclusive of the testimony as to the arrests of each defendant and the seizure of the guns, which we have already summarized.

the oral statements were heard in conjunction with the trial, and each motion was ultimately denied. The statements of Johnson and Washington contained references to one or both of their co-defendants. But, at the trial, when the statement of each was admitted into evidence against him through the testimony of one or more of the police officers to whom the statement had been made, the trial judge meticulously excluded from the statement all such reference to either of the other two co-defendants by sustaining objections thereto on hearsay grounds. In summarizing the statements, however, we will report them as testified to before the objections were made and sustained because one contention on this appeal relates to this matter.

After 'life and death' witnesses had...