People v. Gurdak

Citation357 Ill. 516,192 N.E. 554
Decision Date17 October 1934
Docket NumberNo. 22381.,22381.
PartiesPEOPLE v. GURDAK.
CourtSupreme Court of Illinois

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; John Prystalski, Judge.

Anthony Gurdak was convicted of robbery while armed with a dangerous weapon, and he brings error.

Reversed and remanded.

Thaddeus C. Toudor, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Otto Kerner, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and J. J. Veiger, of Springfiled (Edward E. Wilson, J. Albert Woll, and Henry E. Seyfarth, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

DE YOUNG, Justice.

Anthony Gurdak was indicted in the criminal court of Cook county for robbery while armed with a dangerous weapon. He entered the plea of not guilty; a jury found him guilty; a new trial was granted and upon a second trial without a jury he was again found guilty and sentenced to the penitentiary. He prosecutes this writ of error.

The Ross-Jorgensen Company is engaged in the retail dry goods business at 3520 Fullerton avenue in the city of Chicago. The store faces south and two entrances afford access from the street. Counters for the display of merchandise are placed throughout the store and the office is located in the northwest corner. On Saturday, January 21, 1933, about 6:30 o'clock in the evening, while a number of customers were in the store, a man armed with a revolver took $379.15 from a cash register near the door to the office. At the same time another man stood near the west front door. After the money was taken, both ran from the store.

Two witnesses were called by the prosecution to identify the plaintiff in error. Elsa Off, a sister of Reuben H. Jorgensen, the president of the company, testified that as she walked out of the office at the time in question she saw a man take money from the cash register, while Fannie Jorgensen, the cashier and manager of the store, stood near; that a clerk approached and the stranger pointed a gun at her and exclaimed ‘Somebody get her’; that the witness ran towards the front of the store but stopped when she discovered a man at the west front door with something concealed in his pocket; that she was nervous and excited and observed no peculiar features to distinguish him, and that a week later, at a police station, upon a review of ten or twelve men under arrest, she told the police officers that the plaintiff in error resembled the man who stood at the west door of the store at the time of the robbery; that he was requested to walk to the corner of the room in the police station, and that she then identified him as the same person. On cross-examination it appeared that, with some interruptions, she had been employed in the store during the period of fifteen years, but did not know approximately the number of its employees; that she gave the police officers neither information concerning the height, the complexion, or the apparel, nor any other guide towards the identification of the person at the door; that she saw the plaintiff in error at the police station twice on Saturday, a week after the robbery, but did not remember the time of the day she called at the station; that the first time she saw him she was not certain whether he was the man who stood at the door; that she returned, talked to a police officer whose name and individuality she did not recollect, saw the plaintiff in error again, and after he put on his hat and walked back, she was positive in her identification; and that she was convinced he was the man who stood at the door because, since the robbery, she had seen him in the court room several times.

The other witness who identified the plaintiff in error was Mary Mosely. She testified that on the particular Saturday evening, there were ten or twelve employees and from fifteen to twenty other persons in the store; that while she attended a customer at a table about twenty feet from the west front door, she noticed a man standing at that door with a gun partially withdrawn from his pocket; that she had never seen him before and did not mention his presence to any other person; that a week later she was taken to a police station by Jorgensen, the president of the company, and viewed seven or eight men under arrest, and after they were directed to put their hats on their heads, she recognized the plaintiff in error, one of their number, as the person who stood at the west front door of the store at the time the robbery was committed.

The plaintiff in error is twenty-one years of age, employed as an upholsterer, and resides with his parents in the city of Chicago. He testified that on Saturday, January 21, 1933, he was at home until 6:30 p. m. when he went to a barber shop about eight doors distant; that he had his hair cut and was shaved and returned home at 7:30 o'clock; that on the afternoon of January 28, 1933, an inquiry from a certain police station was made for him; that he went to the station immediately and found Elsa Off and Mrs. Jorgensen there; that police officers directed ten or twelve young men, including the plaintiff in error, to stand against a wall; that their names were asked and they were told to turn around and put on their hats; that Elsa Off did not then identify the plaintiff in error, while Mrs. Jorgensen thought another of the young men entered the store the preceding Saturday; that an officer asked Mrs. Jorgensen whether she identified any other person present and when she answered in the negative, the officer pointed towards the plaintiff in error and inquired whether he was at the store and again she gave a negative answer; that Elsa Off returned to the station later in the evening and after the proceeding of placing the men against a wall, asking their names, and directing them to turn around was repeated, Elsa Off said she thought the plaintiff in error was one of the men engaged in the robbery, and that he promptly answered, ‘You are badly mistaken, madam, I was not there.’ The plaintiff in error in his testimony on the trial denied that he ever approached or entered the Ross-Jorgensen Company's store or that he participated in or had any connection with the perpetration of the robbery.

The alibi interposed by the plaintiff in error was supported by the testimony of three other witnesses. Andrew Jedrzdjczyk, who had conducted a barber shop a few doors from the home of the plaintiff in error for twelve years, testified that on January 21, 1933, about 6:40 p. m., the latter came to his shop; that he asked and received a hair cut and a shave, paid 75 cents for those services, and left about 7:20 o'clock. The witness fixed the date because the father of the plaintiff in error called at the shop the succeeding Saturday and said that his son was missing. Stella Jedrzdjczyk, the wife of the barber, whose home was to the rear of his shop, corroborated her husband's testimony with respect to the presence of the plaintiff in error in the shop on the day and hour fixed by him. She testified that a view of the interior of the barber shop could be obtained from her kitchen; that she was engaged in washing dishes; and that she observed the time the plaintiff in error entered the shop from a clock above the sink. Joe Gorney, employed as a fireman at a soap factory for nine years, testified that he visited...

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4 cases
  • People ex rel. Auburn Coal & Material Co. v. Hughes
    • United States
    • Illinois Supreme Court
    • October 19, 1934
  • People v. Flaherty
    • United States
    • Illinois Supreme Court
    • March 17, 1947
    ...against his will, property owned by him or in his care, custody or control. People v. Kubish, 357 Ill. 531, 192 N.E. 543;People v. Gurdak, 357 Ill. 516, 192 N.E. 554. Robbery and burglary are separate and distinct offenses. The fact that both crimes resulted from the same transaction and in......
  • Kagy v. Luke
    • United States
    • Illinois Supreme Court
    • October 17, 1934
  • People v. Del Prete
    • United States
    • Illinois Supreme Court
    • November 18, 1946
    ... ... The only evidence as to the whereabouts of the defendant at the time of the holdup is how own testimony on the stand, which is not entirely convincing. The other cases cited by plaintiff in error, People v. Gurdak, 357 Ill. 516, 192 N.E. 554;People v. Sanders, 357 Ill. 610, 192 N.E. 697;People v. Peck, 358 Ill. 642, 193 N.E. 609;People v. Botulinski, 383 Ill. 608, 50 N.E.2d 716, are just as readily distinguished from the case here under review. Here the testimony of the prosecuting witness was positive and ... ...

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