People v. Hildebrand

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: DUNN
• Citation: People v. Hildebrand, 307 Ill. 544, 139 N.E. 107 (Ill. 1923)
• Decision Date: 18 April 1923
• Docket Number: No. 15209.,15209.
• Parties: PEOPLE v. HILDEBRAND et al.

307 Ill. 544

139 N.E. 107

PEOPLE

v.HILDEBRAND et al.

No. 15209.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 18, 1923.

Error to Circuit Court, St. Clair County; George A. Crow, Judge.

Leo Hildebrand, Melvin Cramer, Peter McCann, and Claude Bernero were convicted of robbery, and bring error.

Affirmed.

J. M. Bandy, of Granite City, for plaintiffs in error.

Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., Hilmar C. Lindauer, State's Atty., of Belleville, and Floyd E. Britton, of Springfield (Louis Klingel, and James A. Farmer, both of Belleville, of counsel), for the People.

DUNN, J.

The Dupo State Savings Bank, of Dupo, in St. Clair county, was robbed a few minutes after 2 o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, December 23, 1921, and $11,344.15 in money was taken by the robbers. The plaintiffs in error, Leo Hildebrand, Melvin Cramer, Peter McCann, and Claude Bernero, together with Roy Damen, were indicted for the crime, and upon trial the plaintiffs in error were convicted. They have sued out a writ of error to reverse the conviction. Damen was acquitted.

It is contended that the evidence does not support the verdict. Dupo is a village of about 1,400 inhabitants, situated about seven miles south of East St. Louis. Large switching yards of the Missouri Pacific and Iron Mountain Railroads are located there, and the banks have to arrange for the cashing of checks for the railroad men. December 23 was the day before pay day, and the president of the bank, in accordance with his custom, had been to East St. Louis in the forenoon of that day and arranged for money to cash the checks on pay day. He brought back the money from an East St. Louis Bank in an automobile. The money was in bills of the denominations of $5, $10, and $20, and there were some silver and pennies. The bills were put up in packages of $500 each, fastened with pink papers in strips one inch wide and of whatever length was necessary to go round the bills across the center of them, fastened with a pin, with the amount of the package ($500) stamped on the paper. The silver half dollars and quarter dollars were in $20 rolls and the pennies were in canvas bags, tied up. The bank was situated on the southeast cornerof Lindemann avenue, running east and west, and Second street, running north and south. It fronted 28 feet on Second street, and extended back 44 feet on Lindemann avenue. The entrance was at the northwest corner of the building, where there was a landing about 6 feet square, which was reached by two steps from each street. Double swinging glass doors opened into the bank. The bank fixtures, which separated the portion of the room accessible to the public from that portion in which the bank's business was transacted by its officers and employees, extended from the south wall, about 9 feet back of the front, north to a point about 6 feet south of the north wall, and then, turning with a curve to the east, extended to a point 28 feet east of the west wall, leaving a corridor some 6 feet wide on the north side of the room. The portion of the room east of that point was used as a directors' room, except the south 10 feet of that portion, which was occupied by the vault. The base of the fixtures consisted of an oak counter, which was surmounted by a metal screen; the whole being about 8 feet high. At the east end of the 6-foot corridor there was a door opening into the directors' room, and also one opening into the banking compartment, from which there was also a door into the directors' room. There was a window in the metal screen through which business was transacted, at the turn of the fixtures opposite the door.

At the time of the robbery George C. Lindemann, the president of the bank, and Hilda Breidecker, the assistant cashier, were seated at a table in the directors' room with their backs to the door opening into the banking compartment. Albert Metzger, the cashier, stood near the window which has been mentioned, facing the door. No one else was in the bank. Four men with revolvers in their hands, caps pulled down over their eyes, handkerchiefs over the lower part of their faces, ordered Metzger to hold up his hands. He did not see them when they entered the bank, but first saw them when they stood before his window. One of the men then climbed over the partition to the east of Metzger, and the noise he made attracted the attention of Lindemann and Miss Breidecker, who came into the banking compartment through the door from the directors' room and were met by the man who had climbed over the partition, with the command to hold up their hands. He had a handkerchief over his face and a revolver in his hand, and ordered all three to lie down on their faces. Another man similarly disguised and armed was seated in a chair by a desk. How he got there does not appear from the evidence. The first man said to Lindemann, ‘You are the one to open the safe; come on and open it,’ and pushed him. Lindemann went into the vault and opened the safe. He then came out of the vault and lay down again on his face. The men gathered up the money and put it in a sack. The bank was equipped with a siren, and Metzger with his foot found the button and pressed it. During all this time a Grant Six automobile had been standing in front of the bank or a little south of it, with its engine running. When this alarm sounded, the car moved up in front of the bank and the chauffeur sounded the horn three times. The robbers came out of the bank, got into the automobile, and went north on Second street. A few minutes later they were seen going at a rate of 40 or 45 miles an hour on the road to St. Louis. Oscar E. Schellhardt had just come out of a doctor's office on the west side of Second street a short distance north of Lindemann avenue. He saw the men come out of the bank and get into the car. When the robbers left, Metzger went out after them. They were then nearly a block away. He asked Schellhardt to follow them, and the two did so in Schellhardt's Ford car, but they were not able to keep up. They followed them about 2 miles, and, finding they were not able to overtake them, stopped for Metzger to telephone. The robbers' car disappeared. The next morning it was found standing at Eighteenth and Market streets, in East St. Louis. Policemen took it to police headquarters, where it has been ever since, and nobody has claimed it. In the car was a band of pink paper such as that which was around the packages of currency which were taken, some paper, such as coin is wrapped in by banks, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, with the number filed off, and a sawed-off single-barrel shotgun with the number filed off. This account of the robbery was proved by the evidence introduced by the state.

The plaintiffs in error insist that the evidence does not sustain the verdict, because it is not sufficient to identify them as the persons who committed the robbery, and because the evidence of the defense establishes an alibi for each of the plaintiffs in error. These are the two questions of fact in the case.

Lindemann was unable to identify any of the robbers. He saw only the two who were inside the bank fixtures. He described the one who held the revolver and ordered him to hold up his hands, and who afterward compelled him to open the safe, as a very tall man with a dark complexion. Both he and the man in the chair had on caps and cravenettes-yellow raincoats. Miss Breidecker testified that this same man, who met her and Lindemann at the door, was a large man, who had heavy, dark eyebrows and wore a cravenette. She could see his eyes and eyebrows, but not the lower part of his face. The other man, who was seated, also wore a cravenette. He was short and heavy. He was built like Bernero, and she thought he was Bernero, because of his build. She had seen a picture of Bernero, and had covered the lower part of the face of the picture, and it looked like him. She was lying in such a position that she could see his eyes, but not the lower part of his face. She also saw a third man, and saw his handkerchief drop from his face twice. He was outside the fixtures which divided the banking room, and she could not see his face, and did not identify any one but Bernero. Metzger testified that he could not identify the man that climbed over the fixtures. He was a very good-sized man, and while Metzger was lying on the floor he heard the man go to the drawers and take out the money, and one man go into the vault and afterwards come out and make Lindemann open the safe. He said there were three men in the cage, and one of the robbers was right close to him-he could feel him. He did not know how many there were. He had an opportunity to see one of the robbers. When he first saw them standing before his window, they had handkerchiefs over their faces, and one of them seemed to have trouble to keep his up. It fell down, and he had to grab it and put it back. Metzger got a very good look at him while his handkerchief was down, and he identified him at the trial as the plaintiff in error McCann.

Two or three customers came into the bank while the robbery was going on, but they were also forced to lie down on the floor on their faces and were unable to identify any of the robbers. One of them, D. H. Henson, testified that, as he opened the door and walked in, a man standing there with a gun pushed him aroud a little before he got inside the door and told him to ‘Stick them up!’ and made him lie down on the floor. He said this man was a short fellow with a dark complexion, and that the plaintiff in error Hildebrand resembled him in color, complexion, height, and all.

Schellhardt, who followed the robbers with Metzger in his car, testified that, after the siren sounded and the driver of the car near the bank drove up and tooted his horn, the men came out of the bank and got in the car. The driver of the car he said was Damen. The first man to get in the car had a handkerchief around his neck, and a gun in his right...