People v. Hoffman

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: FULTON
• Citation: People v. Hoffman, 381 Ill. 460, 45 N.E.2d 874 (Ill. 1943)
• Decision Date: 15 January 1943
• Docket Number: No. 26855.,26855.
• Parties: PEOPLE v. HOFFMAN.

381 Ill. 460

45 N.E.2d 874

PEOPLE

v.HOFFMAN.

No. 26855.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 17, 1942.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 15, 1943.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County Daniel P. Trude, Judge.

Stanley Hoffman was convicted of burglary, and he brings error.

Reversed and remanded with directions.W. G. Anderson and Jay J. McCarthy, both of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

George F. Barrett, Atty. Gen., and Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago (Edward E. Wilson, John T. Gallagher, and Melvin S. Rembe, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

FULTON, Justice.

The plaintiff in error was indicted by the grand jury of Cook county on three counts. Two of the counts charged him with the crime of burglary. By the third count he was charged with the offense of malicious mischief. He pleaded not guilty, signed a jury waiver, and the cause was tried by the court without the intervention of a jury. At the close of the proof the court found him guilty of burglary and sentenced him to the penitentiary under the Indeterminate Sentence Act. Ill.Rev.Stat.1941, c. 38, § 802. The advisory recommendation incorporated in the judgment was that the minimum term of imprisonment should be two years and the maximum term five years. He brings this record here for review on writ of error alleging the insufficiency of the finding by the trial court, certain error on the trial, and that the Parole Act as amended in 1941, Ill.Rev.Stat.1941, c. 38, § 801 et seq., is unconstitutional and void.

The language of the first two counts of the indictment charges the plaintiff in error, Stanley Hoffman, with feloniously, burglariously, willfully, maliciously, and forcibly breaking and entering a certain dwelling house with intent the personal goods, chattels, money and property of Joseph Letang then and there being, to steal, take and carry away. The testimony shows that Joseph Letang and Marianna Letang lived in a six-room bungalow at the southwest corner of Argyle and Kostner avenues in the city of Chicago. They left their home at Kostner avenue on July 23, 1941, and went to the country for a few days. They locked up the house and when they came back on July 27, the basement door had been jimmied, both locks broken and the drawers in the bedroom had been pulled out and the contents stirred up. Nothing had been taken, however. Walter C. Anderson, a police officer, received a radiogram to go to that point on North Kostner avenue about 10:45 on July 25, 1941. With him were Sergeant Bauler and two other officers. When they got to the building, Anderson saw a hole in the screen door and the door was unhooked. The basement door had been jimmied and damaged and there were marks around the lock of the door. He searched the basement from front to rear but neither saw nor heard anything. When he was coming upstairs he heard a scream in the back yard and went out and saw Sergeant Bauler holding the plaintiff in error. Sergeant Bauler testified that he was in the back yard and a few moments after he got there he noticed a screen in the rear window on the south side of the house fly out into the yard, and a few seconds later the plaintiff in error jumped out of the window and started to run. The officer halted him and Hoffman announced ‘I am in trouble again.’ Hoffman admitted to the officers that he had jimmied the basement door and told them that he entered the dwelling in order to get money to buy a diamond ring for some girl he was going to marry. When he jumped out the back window he had a tire tool in his back pocket which he turned over to the officers, and admitted to them that he gained entrance through the back door which he had jimmied. He also told the officers that he had parked his automobile about a block away and the officers located and secured the car.

It is first contended by the plaintiff in error that the trial court merely rendered a finding of ‘guilty of burglary,’ and that such finding is insufficient upon which to base a judgment without the words added ‘with intent to commit larceny.’ The record in the case shows that after the proofs were closed and after the arguments of counsel, the court announced ‘There will be a finding of guilty in this case as charged in the indictment.’ After motions for a new trial and arrest of judgment had been denied, the plaintiff in error made a motion for probation, and the hearing on this motion was set for a future date. Upon the hearing of the motion the court said, ‘I am going to find this young man guilty and sentence him under the statute one year to life.’ The theory of the plaintiff in error is that the indictment specifically charges the defendant with the crime of ‘burglary with intent to commit larceny’ and that the mere finding the defendant guilty of burglary is a finding of only a part of the statutory crime, and that merely entering a house without intent to commit larceny or some other felony is not burglary. In support of this argument he cites the case of Schwabacher v. People, 165 Ill. 618, 46 N.E. 809, 813. The court did state in that case that ‘the breaking and entering the house in the nighttime alone did not constitute the crime of burglary, but it was necessary to prove that the act was done with the specific intent alleged in the indictment; that is, to steal the goods and chattels therein of Mrs. Bell.’ The record in this case shows quite plainly that the plaintiff in error entered the Letang dwelling house with the specific intent of stealing some of the property therefrom, and the ruling of the court finding that the plaintiff in error was guilty as charged in the indictment is supported by the testimony.

It is next urged by the plaintiff in error that the corpus delicti cannot be proved by the confession of the defendant. It is true that a mere uncorroborated confession is insufficient to convict, and if in this case there was nothing else proven except that the defendant entered the house and there was no attempt to commit a felony, it would not be sufficient to find the defendant guilty. However, in the case of People v. Brown, 379 Ill. 262, 40 N.E.2d 66, 68, this court held that ‘the corpus delicti is not required to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt by evidence aliunde the confession or admissions of the accused. It is not essential that the corpus delicti shall be established by evidence other than that which tends to connect...