People v. Lawson

• Decision Date: 15 October 1928
• Docket Number: No. 18082.,18082.
• Citation: 163 N.E. 149,331 Ill. 380
• Parties: PEOPLE v. LAWSON et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

331 Ill. 380

163 N.E. 149

PEOPLE

v.LAWSON et al.

No. 18082.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 23, 1928.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 15, 1928.

Error to Circuit Court, La Salle County; Edgar Eldredge, Judge.

Frank Le Roy Lawson and others were convicted of robbery while armed with a gun, and they bring error.

Affirmed.George W. Sprenger, of Peoria, and Thomas O'Meara, of Ottawa, for plaintiffs in error.

Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., Russell O. Hanson, State's Atty., of Ottawa, Merrill F. Wehmhoff, of Springfield, and Chester E. Jacobson, of Leland, for the People.

DUNCAN, J.

Plaintiffs in error, Frank Le Roy Lawson and Sam Wade (herein referred to as defendants), were jointly indicted with George Dabney, Thomas Dabney, and Orville Mann in the circuit court of La Salle county, for the robbery of Thomas Logeland while armed with a gun. Lawson, Wade, and George Dabney pleaded not guilty. Wade moved for a separate trial, but his motion was denied by the court. Mann and Thomas Dabney pleaded guilty, and became witnesses in the trial of the other three defendants, Dabney for the people, and Mann for the three defendants tried. George Dabney was found not guilty by the jury. Lawson and Wade were found guilty as charged in the indictment, and their ages were found to be 32 and 26 years, respectively. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were overruled, and Lawson and Wade were sentenced to the penitentiary for an indeterminateterm of not less than 10 years or for life. They have sued out this writ of error to review the record.

Baker, the village in which the robbery was committed, is in La Salle county, about 20 miles north of Ottawa, and located on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, which runs east and west through the village. A public highway also runs east and west through the village, and is parallel to the railroad and south of it. The railroad station and a grain elevator are between the railroad and the public highway. South of the highway, and a short distance west of the station, there is a two-story building facing the north, the first floor of which was used as a storeroom by Thomas Logeland on December 29, 1924, the date of the robbery, and the second floor was used as a hall. The storeroom was a large room, in which the counter extended north and south along the west side, and back of the counter and along the wall were shelves for merchandise and a cash drawer. In the south end of the room there was a heating stove, and east of the heating stove was a long bench. In the evening of December 29, 1924, about 6 o'clock or later, a number of people from the surrounding country had congreated at the store to attend an oyster supper that was to be served in the hall above. Others were still arriving, and the oyster supper was about to be served. Logeland was attending to his trade and invoicing his stock of goods, and was behind the counter. About the hour aforesaid four men riding in an inclosed car, described by some of the witnesses as maroon-colored and by others as red, drove through the village in a westerly direction, then turned and proceeded to a point a short distance east of the store, where the car stopped. Three of the men alighted from the car, and the fourth man remained at the car. The three men then proceeded to the store and entered it, and one of them later came out and remained in front of the door, while the robbery was being committed. All of the robbers were masked.

Thomas Dabney, of the age of 22 years and a resident of Marseilles, one of the defendants who pleaded guilty, testified to the planning and committing of the robbery in substance as follows: On December 28, 1924, he went to visit his father, George Dabney, at Mason City, Ill., and about 5:30 in the afternoon he and his father went to Pekin. He met the defendant Lawson there about 8 o'clock that evening at the restaurant of Lawson's brother. He talked to Lawson about committing the robbery at Baker, and told him they could get about $500 there, and that ‘it would be easy picking.’ Lawson replied that they would go there and ‘make the deal.’ Witness stayed in Pekin that night, and in the morning of December 29 returned to Lawson's restaurant, and there saw Lawson and defendant Wade. They talked together and agreed to go to Baker that night and commit the robbery planned by them. They met again about 1 o'clock p. m. Wade was accompanied by defendant Mann in a red Gardner sedan automobile, and Lawson, Wade, Mann, and witness and his father got into the automobile. Wade drove the car, and Mann sat with Wade in the front seat. Lawson, witness, and his father sat in the rear seat. They first drove to Peoria, and witness' father got out of the car and remained in Peoria, and the other four drove to La Salle, from there to Ottawa, and thence north to Baker. They inquired at Serena, and also at a farm house, about the road to Baker, and had some difficulty finding their way. They arrived in Baker about 7:30 p. m. They drove through the village and by Logeland's store in a westerly direction. They then turned and went back, and stopped about a half block east of Logeland's store. All four of them were armed with revolvers. Lawson had a 32–20 Spanish gun, Wade and witness each had a .38 pistol, and Mann had a .38 special. Lawson remained at the car, and Mann, Wade, and witness got out of the car and walked to the store. Mann had a blue stocking cap pulled down over his face, with two holes cut in it for his eyes. Witness and Wade wore handkerchief masks. With drawn guns they entered the store, and Mann ordered the people there to hold up their hands and line up along the east wall. Several shots were fired by the robbers inside and outside of the building. Witness got on the outside of the storeroom and made the people in front of the building and those who came later hold up their hands while he searched them for guns, and after searching them he ordered them to go inside. Wade and Mann stayed on the inside. Wade struck one of the men in the store on the side of the head, because he would not hold up his hands. They remained at the store about 5 minutes, and then, after robbing the people there, ran back to the car, beside which Lawson was then standing. They then drove toward Marseilles, and from there to Morris. The roads were frozen and icy, and their speed was about 40 miles an hour. Between Marseilles and Morris the right front spring on the car was broken, which let the fender down on the wheel. They arrived at Morris about 9:30 p. m., and witness, Lawson, and Mann left Wade and the car there. Lawson, Mann, and witness, after getting something to eat, stole a Dodge car and started toward Stockdale. Mann was driving the Dodge car, and it went into a ditch and turned over. They then walked to Stockdale and boarded an interurban car for Ottawa. Sheriff Welter got on the interurban car at East Ottawa and arrested all three of them. When witness saw the sheriff get on the interurban car, he put the pistol he was carrying under the seat in which he was sitting. Mann, Lawson, and witness were taken to the jail and searched by the sheriff and his deputies. The handkerchief masks, several $1 bills, pistols, cartridges, and Logeland's watch were found on them by the officers. He further testified that after the robbery, and while they were driving between Serena and Morris, the four robbers divided the loot equally between them. When witness was searched, he had $11.56, a blue handkerchief, and 11.38-calibrecartridges on his person. He also saw Mann and Lawson searched. He saw the watch that was taken from Logeland in Mann's possession, and Mann said something about the watch when they were in Morris, after the robbery. Witness identified the guns and masks, taken from himself and his accomplices by the officers and introduced in evidence, as the same guns and masks used during the robbery. Witness had known Wade for more than a year, but had his first conversation with him on the day of the robbery. He had seen Mann before the day of the robbery but did not know his name, and had not talked to him before the day of the robbery. He knew Lawson before the robbery. Mann wore a dark blue coat, or sailor coat, at the time the robbery was committed.

George Dabney, father of Thomas Dabney, corroborated the testimony of his son as to his statement that Wade, Mann, and Lawson met his son in Pekin at 1 o'clock in the afternoon of December 29, and that those four, together with witness, then went to Peoria in a red car, which was driven by Wade, and that witness left the car at Peoria and remained there. He further testified that none of them discussed the robbery in his presence, and he did not know there was to be a robbery committed at Baker. Thomas Dabney was also corroborated by the testimony of a number of other witnesses, who were in the store, or in front of it, at the time the robbery was committed, as to Dabney's statement as to the movement of the robbers' car in Baker before the robbery, and as to the fact that there were four robbers, three of whom committed the robbery, while the fourth remained at the automobile. He was further corroborated by these witnesses as to his testimony that two of the robbers at the store wore blue dotted handkerchiefs as masks, and that the third one had a stocking cap drawn over his head and face, with holes cut in it for his eyes, and some of those witnesses identified the masks that were introduced in evidence as the same masks which were used by the robbers while committing the robbery.

One witness, Burton Kirkus, testified that he, with five or six other men, was sitting on the bench in the store when the robbers entered; that he was shot in the leg by one of the robbers during the time the robbery was committed, and that the robber with the stocking cap mask was the one who robbed the storekeeper, Logeland. Two of the witnesses, who were on the outside of the store...