People v. Reader

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: SOLFISBURG
• Citation: People v. Reader, 26 Ill.2d 210, 186 N.E.2d 298 (Ill. 1962)
• Decision Date: 30 November 1962
• Docket Number: No. 36803,36803
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. John READER, Plaintiff in Error.

Page 298

186 N.E.2d 298

26 Ill.2d 210

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. John READER, Plaintiff in Error.

No. 36803.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 30, 1962.

Jason Ernest Bellows, Chicago (Bellows, Bellows & Magidson, Chicago, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

William G. Clark Atty. Gen., Springfield, and Daniel P. Ward, State's Atty., Chicago, (Fred G. Leach and E. Michael O'Brien, Asst. Attys. Gen., and Rudolph L. Janega and Edwin J. Belz, Asst. State's Atty., of counsel), for defendant in error.

SOLFISBURG, Chief Justice.

The defendant, John Reader, was convicted of the crime of murder of one Morris Bailen in the criminal court of Cook County after a trial by jury and was sentenced to 99 years imprisonment in the penitentiary. By this writ of error he asserts that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on defendant's theory of the case; that he was not proved guilty beyond all reasonable doubt; that he should have been discharged in the trial court, not having been brought to trial within four months of his arrest; that the court erred in receiving testimony concerning the mental condition of the deceased during a period of his hospitalization prior to death; and that the trial court erroneously admitted a purported confession into evidence, where the evidence showed that all persons who had viewed the defendant in custody were not called as witnesses as to his treatment by the police.

In September of 1933 Morris Bailen, owner of a wholesale junk shop in Chicago was shot by a man who entered the shop apparently to commit a robbery. The defendant was identified as being the same man by two employees of the shop who were present at the attempted robbery. After Bailen was shot, the defendant was apprehended in the basement of a home near the junk shop by several police officers. Bailen was taken to a hospital where he died on November 25, 1933. The bullet had caused a complete fracture of the left femur of the deceased and before his death in the hospital, he had contracted a confluent bronchopneumonia and chronic osteomyelitis.

The instruction regarding the defendant's theory of the case which the court refused to give is as follows:

'You are instructed that the burden is upon the State to prove the cause of death beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, and this proof must show that death was occasioned directly by criminal act of the defendant, but if you find that the injury inflicted by the defendant merely contributed to his death, and was not the sole or immediate cause of death, then you should find the defendant not guilty of the charge of murder.'

We know of no case which requires the injury inflicted by the defendant to be 'the sole or immediate cause of death' and the defendant has cited none to us. As the instruction directs the jury to find the defendant 'not guilty' if they find that the injury inflicted by the defendant was not 'the sole and immediate cause of death,' the instruction does not properly state the law and the trial judge correctly refused the instruction.

Defendant contends that the evidence was insufficient to prove the defenant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and more specifically, that the State failed to establish the corpus delicti because the evidence fails to show that the shooting was the cause of death. We have examined the record carefully as to the evidence presented by Dr. B. L. Schrager and Dr. Harry Harris. The question is whether death was caused by the gunshot wound or by pneumonia. Considering the evidence of the doctors in its entirety, the facts proved are such that would warrant a jury in believing beyond a reasonable doubt that the gunshot wound was the cause of death and that the subsequent pneumonia which arose several days prior to death in the hospital was merely a condition which often follows hospitalization due to such a gunshot wound. The corpus delicti was satisfactorily proved.

Next the defendant claims that he should have been discharged in the trial court as he was not brought to trial within four months of his arrest. The record reveals defendant was arrested on September 9, 1933, and that on January 8, 1934, on motion of counsel for the defendant the case was advanced from January 18, 1934, to January 8, 1934. Also on said date, and immediately thereafter, the court continued the cause until January 18, 1937, on motion of counsel for the defendant. As the statutory four-month period did not expire until January 9, 1934, the defendant's motion was therefore made prior to the expiration of the four-month period. The case was ultimately tried on January 25, 1934. Since defense counsel's motion for continuance was within the four-month period, defendant cannot now claim that he is entitled to a discharge under the four-month statute. (People v. Clark, 17 Ill.2d 486, 162 N.E.2d 413). Furthermore, the defendant failed to raise the question of discharge before conviction and we have held that where the defense fails to raise the question prior to conviction, the four-month statute is waived. (People v. Walker, 13 Ill.2d 232, 148 N.E.2d 754). The defendant further contends that he did not consent to a waiver of the four-month statute and that his trial counsel was incompetent in regard to this particular phase of the trial. He cites People v. Oden, 20 Ill.2d 470, 170 N.E.2d 582, as authority for sustaining this contention. The State maintains that case is inapplicable. In People v. Oden, we considered alleged grounds for reversal on the basis of incompetence of appointed counsel, even though certain objections were not made at the trial. In that case the State introduced in evidence statements taken six months before trial which the prosecutor knew contained prejudicial references to other crimes. The prosecutor did not move to have these matters deleted from the statements and the defendant's counsel did not object. This court there said that it is no answer for the State to say that defendant's appointed counsel did not object, as he claimed his counsel was incompetent. The court, therefore, considered the errors assigned even though no objection was made at the trial. We do not consider the actual question presented in People v. Oden to be analogous to the one in the present case. While we are unable to ascertain why the public defender made the motions that he did on January 8, 1934, we cannot say that the making of said motions rendered trial counsel incompetent. We can conceive of many reasons, all of which would be dehors the record, as to why defense counsel would ask for a continuance even though it resulted in a waiver of the four-month statute.

The trial court admitted into evidence testimony revealing that while Bailen was in the hospital he was mentally unbalanced for a number of weeks; that he had hallucinations; that he would yell at the top of his voice; and that he had to be given morphine to quiet him down. The admission of this evidence is claimed to be error for the reason that it had no relation to the guilt or innocence of the accused and was prejudicial to the defendant. The State points out that objections to the questions which elicited said testimony were made only after the question was asked and the answer given, and that the objections were, therefore, untimely made. While the objections were made after the questions were answered, the fact still remains that the questions and answers had no relation to the guilt or innocence of the accused and should have been stricken. In examining the entire record we believe this testimony was merely incidental to the medical history of the deceased, was not...