People v. Jones

• Decision Date: 17 December 1919
• Docket Number: No. 12841.,12841.
• Citation: 125 N.E. 256,290 Ill. 603
• Parties: PEOPLE v. JONES.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

290 Ill. 603

125 N.E. 256

PEOPLE

v.JONES.

No. 12841.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 17, 1919.

Error to Circuit Court, Montgomery County; Thomas M. Jett, Judge.

Tim Jones was convicted of robbery, and he brings error.

Judgment reversed.

John E. Hogan, of Taylorville, for plaintiff in error.

Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., J. Earl Major, State's Atty., of Hillsboro, and Sumner S. Anderson, of Charleston (J. D. Wilson, of Nokomis, of counsel), for the People.

DUNN, C. J.

At the November term, 1918, of the circuit court of Montgomery county, the grand jury returned an indictment against Tim Jones and Charles Peppard, charging them in two counts with assaulting William Kehl and by force and intimidation robbing him of $70. The indictment also contained two counts for larceny. The defendants were placed on trial, and at the close of the people's evidence a nolle was entered as to Peppard. At the close of all the evidence the court required the state's attorney to elect upon which counts he would ask a conviction, and he elected the counts charging robbery. The jury found the defendant Tim Jones guilty of robbery, and he has sued out a writ of error to reverse the judgment entered on the verdict.

The plaintiff in error contends that the evidence is insufficient to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that if any crime was proved to have been committed it was not robbery but larceny.

The evidence shows that the prosecuting witness, William Kehl, who was a concrete worker and had come to Illinois from Michigan in March, 1918, and had afterward worked for periods varying from a few days to a few weeks at Peoria, Bloomington, Hudson, and Raymond, in this state, having previously arranged for work on an elevator being constructed in Nokomis, came to that place on September 16, 1918, arriving about 10 o'clock in the morning. He soon afterward went to Sam Lapaski's saloon and spent most of the rest of the day and evening there until 9 or 10 o'clock, drinking whisky, wine, and beer, treatingthe crowd, matching half dollars, giving money to a man and a boy, buying chances in a raffle, and becoming very drunk. Jones, Peppard, and Lon De Witt, who were all strangers to Kehl, were in the saloon after supper and drank with him at his expense. He finally fell on the floor, and as he had procured no lodging place these three went with him to a hotel to get a room. He sat down or fell down on the porch and did not get a room. The four then started back across the railroad, De Witt on one side of Kehl and Jones on the other helping him, and at the railroad track Kehl again fell down or sat down. Kehl testified that at the railroad crossing Jones slipped his hand in Kehl's hip pocket and took the latter's pocketbook, in which was his money; that Kehl said to Jones, ‘You have my pocketbook,’ and then Jones hit him over the eye and ‘knocked him out.’ De Witt testified that Kehl sat down on a pile of ties and was going to lie down. De Witt and Jones went to pick him up, Jones taking hold of one side and De Witt the other, and as they started to raise him up Jones...