People v. Norris
| Decision Date | 19 February 1936 |
| Docket Number | No. 2331.,2331. |
| Citation | 200 N.E. 330,362 Ill. 492 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. NORRIS et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Harry B. Miller, Judge.
John Norris and another were convicted of larceny, and they bring error.
Affirmed.
Max Lurie and Edwin C. Podewell, both of Chicago, for plaintiffs in error.
Otto Kerner, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and A. B. Dennis, of Danville (Edward E. Wilson, John T. Gallagher, and Richard H. Devine, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.
The only error relied upon for reversal of the judgment in this case is that the people failed to prove the defendants John Norris and John Such guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Both were found guilty by a jury in the criminal court of Cook county of the crime of the larceny of an automobile. They were sentenced for a term of from one to twenty years in the penitentiary, and now seek a reversal by writ of error.
Neither of the defendants testified in his own behalf or offered any evidence of any kind. The only witnesses at the trial were offered by the people. Harold Prange testified that his Ford V-8 sedan was stolen January 8, 1935, from the 6400 block on South Peoria street in Chicago and that he next saw his car in a garage, wrecked, on January 11, 1935. John Graham, a police officer, testified that on January 11, 1935, at 1:30 a. m., he and his partner were on duty, driving a police car north on Western avenue between Sixty-Second and Sixty-Third streets, when he observed an automobile traveling rapidly in the opposite direction. He turned and gave chase and repeatedly sounded his siren, but could not overtake the speeding car. There was little or no street traffic on the night in question. The pavement was slippery and covered with a light snow. In his judgment the car ahead of them was going 50 miles an hour and outdistanced the officers by a block and a half or two blocks. Suddenly the car ahead seemed to swerve sidewise on the icy pavement and appeared to have struck a post or other obstacle. When they reached the scene, in front of 6541 Western avenue, they found the car wrecked, both doors off and two men lying in the street, one on either side of the car. These two men were the defendants John Norris, otherwise called John Mulcahy, and John Such. Both were taken to a hospital. Norris was unconscious and Such made no statement.
There is no question but what the Ford V-8 sedan, pursued by the police officers and wrecked, was the automobile stolen from Prange. Its identity was established by its owner and a police officer. The evidence showed that defendants were driving this car at a high rate of speed on icy pavements in an attempt to escape the police officers. The immediate finding of Norris and Such prostrate on the pavement near the wrecked car, with both of its doors torn off, is...
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