People v. Hayes, 77-1377

• Decision Date: 16 March 1979
• Docket Number: No. 77-1377,77-1377
• Citation: 26 Ill.Dec. 817,70 Ill.App.3d 811,388 N.E.2d 818
• Parties: , 26 Ill.Dec. 817 PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Larry HAYES, Edward Murphy, George Wormley, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 818

388 N.E.2d 818

70 Ill.App.3d 811, 26 Ill.Dec. 817

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Larry HAYES, Edward Murphy, George Wormley, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 77-1377.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Fifth Division.

March 16, 1979.

Rehearing Denied April 25, 1979.

[26 Ill.Dec. 819] James J. Doherty, Public Defender, Chicago, for appellant Larry Hayes; Marc Fogelberg, Asst. Public Defender, Chicago, of counsel

Cornelius E. Toole, Chicago, for appellants Edward Murphy and George Wormley.

Bernard Carey, State's Atty., Chicago (Lee T. Hettinger, Iris E. Sholder, Ira H. Raphaelson, Asst. State's Attys., Chicago, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.

WILSON, Justice:

After a jury trial, defendants were convicted of murder (Ill.Rev.Stat.1973, ch. 38, par. 9-1) and each sentenced to 75 to 100 years. On appeal, the following issues are raised: (1) Whether defendants were found guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt; (2) whether the trial court committed reversible error by threatening a prosecution witness; (3) whether the trial court erred in admitting into evidence photographs of the murder scene; (4) whether defendant Hayes was denied a fair trial where members of the jury saw photographs which the trial court ruled were not to be displayed to the jury; (5) whether defendants were denied a fair trial when the assistant State's Attorney assumed facts during his rebuttal argument; and (6) whether defendant Hayes' sentence was excessive. We affirm on all points raised.

Patrice Freeman, who was thirteen at the time of the incident in this case, testified that at around midnight on May 16, 1975, she was on an elevator with her friend, Joanne Jones, at 5201 South Federal, a high-rise public housing project. The elevator failed to stop on the fourth floor, where Freeman lived, and despite her efforts, it did not stop until it reached the fifteenth floor. They got off the elevator and began walking down the staircase to Freeman's apartment.

When they arrived at the fifth floor, they saw George Wormley, whom Freeman had known for about three years, standing about eighty feet from the laundry room on the fifth floor. Jones asked Wormley where she could find Larry Hayes, her boyfriend. He told her that Hayes had gone home. After he had said this, Hayes, whom Freeman had known for about a year, came walking down a large hallway. Wormley asked Jones to get a knife for him, but she refused and told him that she was staying with Hayes. He then asked Freeman to get the knife. When she asked him why he wanted the knife, he told her not to worry about it.

Freeman went to apartment 701 and asked a person named Wardell if she could use his knife. She told him that Wormley wanted to use it. When she went into his kitchen, he told her to bring the knife back. She took two knives which she described as "silver and curled at the end." She said that they were not sharp and were blunted at the end.

After she had obtained the knives, Freeman went back to the fifth floor. When she arrived, she saw Wormley, Hayes, and Edward Murphy, whom she had known for about three years. She noticed blood on their clothes and she testified that she thought that she saw blood on Wormley's shoes. She gave the knives to Wormley and asked him what he intended to do. He told her that they were "trying to kill a Stone." When he said that, she asked for the knives back because she did not want to get involved. However, Wormley said nothing. She then asked to see the boy before they did anything. She went into the laundry room with Jones and saw the boy, later identified as Stanley Beck, lying face forward on the floor. She said that he was bloody and was naked from the waist down except for a sock which he was wearing. While she was there, the boy did not move or say anything, and she said that he "looked dead." While she was in the laundry room, Wormley, Hayes, and Murphy were outside, about six feet away from the door.

After seeing the boy, Freeman and Jones ran down to the fourth floor. Freeman could not get into her apartment so she and Jones went out onto the porch area of the fourth floor. There they saw a boy talking to Freeman's aunt. Freeman told the boy that "they" were going to kill somebody. She refused to identify the boy at trial, but she did say that her aunt heard her tell the boy about the killing. She stated that even though she knew a number of people in the building, she did not ask anyone to call the police. She said that she and Jones remained on the porch for about fifteen minutes and then began walking upstairs.

When they reached the sixth floor, Freeman and Jones heard Wormley, Hayes, and Murphy talking. They first saw them on the porch area outside apartment 610. One of them told Freeman and Jones not to say anything about what had happened. At some point, Hayes and Wormley tried to hand the knives back to Freeman, but she refused to accept them. She said that the knives had blood on them. After she had entered the apartment, one of them again told her not to say anything about what had happened. She said that she thinks that it was Hayes. She noticed that the three of them had changed most of their clothes and thought that they had taken off their shirts. She also noticed that both Wormley and Murphy were wearing the same kind of gym shoes which they were wearing when she had seen them on the fifth floor. She remained in the apartment for about five minutes and then left with Jones.

Freeman walked with Jones to her apartment at 5135 South Federal. When they arrived at the building, they met a boyfriend of Freeman's mother. He told Freeman to go back to the building. When she returned to 5201 South Federal, she saw her stepfather and mother but did not tell them what had happened. Also, she said that she did not call the police.

On May 18, 1975, Freeman first spoke to the police in her apartment in the presence of her mother, aunt, and friends. At that time, she told the police that she did not know anything about the boy in the laundry About a week after the incident, Freeman began a series of four or five visits to the police station. Upon separate questioning by counsel for each defendant, she testified to different dates for some of the visits, but consistently testified that she had given two written statements to the police. She said that in each instance she was called to come over to the station by the police, and, although she travelled to the station on her own, after each visit the police drove her home. Her mother was with her on all but one of the visits and whenever she was asked to give a written statement, her mother was present. Each visit began in the early or mid-afternoon and most visits lasted for at least four hours.

[26 Ill.Dec. 821] room. When asked if she ever had occasion to learn that her brother had been arrested and questioned about killing the boy in the laundry, she answered that she had not.

Freeman told the counsel for Hayes that she went to the police station on May 24, 1975, but that she did not tell the police anything about what had happened. She said that while she was there the police were mean to her and were yelling at her. They told her that they had a witness who said that she had borrowed two knives from him on the night that the boy was killed. They also told her that they could charge her with murder. She said that she was frightened and that she lied to the police because she was afraid of getting hurt. On redirect examination, she testified that she was afraid that she was going to be hurt by friends of Wormley, Murphy, and Hayes.

Freeman told counsel for Hayes that about four days after the first visit, she returned to the police station. Two of the police officers who questioned her on this occasion were Investigators Kehoe and Kennedy. She told them that she did not know anything about what had happened in the laundry room. They yelled at her and once again she was told that she could be charged with murder unless she told the truth. She gave them a written statement which made no mention of any involvement by Hayes in the events of May 16-May 17. After this visit, she returned to the police station on two or three other occasions.

Freeman also told the counsel for Hayes that she was called to testify before a grand jury in June of 1975. Prior to her appearance, she was taken into a small room where Investigator Kehoe again yelled at her. She then testified before the grand jury. When she came out of the grand jury room, Kehoe tried to serve her with a subpoena for her appearance at the trial of this case. She refused to accept the subpoena. After her refusal, there was more yelling and, eventually, Kehoe pushed her brother. She said that she agreed to testify only after the assistant State's Attorney agreed to move her mother out of the building at 5201 South Federal.

Freeman told counsel for Wormley that her first visit to the police station occurred about a week after she had seen the boy in the laundry room. She said that Investigators Kehoe and Kennedy questioned her in a small room for a number of hours. She said that she was afraid while she was being questioned because she "had to go home."

Freeman told counsel for Wormley that her next visit occurred around a week later. During that visit, she gave a written statement to the police. The statement essentially included the matters testified to at trial by her. However, in that statement, she omitted mentioning anything about Hayes, her visit to apartment 610, or her seeing her stepfather on May 16 or May 17. She also stated that she had taken only one knife out of Wardell Robinson's apartment. She said that the police were not mean to her after she had given this statement. She testified that this statement was not the truth. On her third visit, which occurred more than three days after the second visit, she was asked to give another statement because the...