People v. Marquis

• Decision Date: 01 June 1931
• Docket Number: No. 20622.,20622.
• Citation: 344 Ill. 261,176 N.E. 314
• Parties: PEOPLE v. MARQUIS.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

344 Ill. 261

176 N.E. 314

PEOPLE

v.MARQUIS.

No. 20622.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 23, 1931.

Rehearing Denied June 1, 1931.

Error to Circuit Court, Macoupin County; Frank W. Burton, Judge.

Simon Marquis was convicted of murder, and he brings error.

Affirmed.

Truman A. Snell and Jesse Peebles, both of Carlinville, for plaintiff in error.

Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., Victor Hemphill, State's Atty., of Carlinville, John P. Madden, of Gillespie, and Michael F. Seyfrit, for the People.

FARMER, J.

Simon Marquis was indicted by the grand jury at the September term, 1930, of the circuit court of Macoupin county for the murder of his son, Fred Marquis, on June 1, 1930, by shooting him with a revolver. Defendant was tried before a jury at the same term of court, and a verdict was returned finding him guilty, that he was 51 years of age, and fixing his punishment at imprisonment in the penitentiary for twenty-five years. The court overruled a motion for a new trial and rendered judgment on the verdict, sentencing defendant to the Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Chester. He has sued out this writ of error to review the record.

Defendant worked in the mines at Staunton when the mines were being operated and at other times engaged in different kinds of labor. The mines were not operating at the time of the homicide, and he and two of his sons, Simon, aged 18 years, and Fred, 20 years old, were cutting coal props and making ties in the timber about seven miles from the city of Staunton, where defendant and his family lived. They did not return home from work every night, but remained at their camp in the timber and came home on week-ends. The shooting occurred June 1, 1930, which was Sunday, about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, in the dining room of defendant's home. Defendant had a wife and six children living at his home in Staunton. He came home from the timber camp a day or so before deceased and his brother returned for the week-end. The father drank rather heavily at times, and when drinking was quarrelsome with the boys. When the boys came home Saturday afternoon, he complained of the amount of work his sons had done in the timber after he left them, and he told them he could do more himself. The sons did not quarrel with him, but in defendant's anger he struck deceased once or perhaps twice. Defendant had been drinking beer and whisky on Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday afternoon, while in the Marquis kitchen, he told deceased if he would not work to get out, and the son said he would. The son then went out of the kitchen, across the porch, and into the dining room and was followed there very shortly by his father. The coats and clothing of the son were in the dining room. Defendant said he followed his son into the dining room to get the tools and provisions he needed, for the purpose of taking them to his working place in the timber. He testified he was in the habit of taking a revolver with him to camp to protect the workmen against theft in the timber, and the coats and hats were hanging in the dining room, where he went to get them before the shooting occurred. He and his son Fred were the only persons in the dining room, and no one but they saw what happened or how it happened. Defendant testified the son, while in the dining room, grabbed defendant from behind, jumped on him, and threw him down upon his hands and knees and upon his belly, and that while his son was on top of him, the revolver, which was in defendant's right hip pocket, was in some manner discharged and mortally wounded the son; that when the revolver was discharged and the bullet hit the son he rolled off of defendant; that defendant arose, picked up the gun, and left the house; that he did not have the gun in his hand before the shooting; that he could not get it from his pocket and did not try to get it; that he did not know whether the son took it out of defendant's pocket or whether it fell out, but he insisted that he did not do the shooting. Immediately following the shooting he went out of the dining room to the kitchen and thence to a vacant house located a short distance away and which his family owned, and from there to an open field, where he was arrested by the chief of police. The bullet entered the son's body at the base of the neck on the right side, above the collar bone. The wound was not probed, and the bullet did not come out of the body. The deceased said nothing after the shooting.

A daughter of defendant, Mrs. Helen Hand, who was almost 15 years old when the homicide occurred, testified that after the shot was fired and when defendant came out of the door to the kitchen she asked him why he did that, and he replied, ‘I told you I would do that some day and I am going to kill another one before I die.’ There was evidence of good reputation of defendant, but it is fairly clear that he was an excessive drinker and was quarrelsome to at least some members of the family when in that condition. He was the only person alive who saw and knew what occurred between him and deceased at the time of the shooting.

In support of defendant's motion for a new trial, he filed the affidavit of Helen Hand, his daughter, which recites that she testified as a witness on the part of the people. She says she testified to the same thing before the grand jury, but states that it is a fact she did not ask her father the question she testified to on the occasion of the shooting and he did not tell her that he had told her he would do that and that he would kill somebody else too before he died. She said in her affidavit that defendant did not say what she testified to or use language like it. The affidavit states that affiant was 15 years of age the 8th of August, 1930; that she became pregnant in the latter part of the year 1929 by a man whom she has since married; that she quit school by request in the month of April, 1930, and that she was greatly frightened and distracted because she feared the wrath of her father when he found out the name of the man who was responsible for her condition; that she was also frightened at the prospect of approaching motherhood, and the dread and fear of her father if he should learn the name of the man responsible for her condition she believed caused her to become partially deranged; that she married the father of her child the 16th day of June, 1930, when she was 14, but her husband refused to live with her as his wife; that...