People v. Reeves

• Decision Date: 10 April 1935
• Docket Number: No. 22667.,22667.
• Citation: 195 N.E. 443,360 Ill. 55
• Parties: PEOPLE v. REEVES.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

360 Ill. 55

195 N.E. 443

PEOPLE

v.REEVES.

No. 22667.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 15, 1935.

Rehearing Denied April 10, 1935.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Philip J. Finnegan, Judge.

Melvin Reeves was convicted of burglary, and he brings error.

Affirmed.Thomas J. Johnson, Sr., and Thomas J. Johnson, Jr., both of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Otto Kerner, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and J. J. Neiger, of Springfield (Edward E. Wilson, Henry E. Seyfarth, and John T. Gallagher, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

HERRICK, Justice.

The plaintiff in error (hereinafter called the defendant) was indicted at the May term, 1932, of the criminal court of Cook county. The indictment consists of two counts. The first count charges forcible breaking and entering the office of the H. W. Kastor & Sons Advertising Company, a corporation (hereinafter called the company), with intent to commit larceny of a certain amount of United States government postage stamps, the property of said company. The second count charges the defendant with entering the office of the company, the doors and windows being open, with intent to commit larceny therein. The case was brought to trial on October 25, 1932, before one of the judges of the criminal court. The trial proceeded for several days and the court declared a mistrial. The case was then tried before a jury in November, 1932, and the defendant found guilty of burglary as charged in the indictment. A new trial was granted. On May 24, 1934, the cause was stricken by the state's attorney, with leave to reinstate. On June 12, 1934, the defendant was surrendered by his sureties in open court and the cause was reinstated on the trial docket. On June 22, 1934, he was again placed on trial before a jury, and a verdict was returned finding him guilty of burglary as charged in the indictment and he was sentenced to the penitentiary. He has sued out this writ of error to review the judgment.

The principal errors assigned and argued are: (1) The evidence does not sustain a conviction for the crime of burglary; (2) the corpus delicti was not proved; (3) the defendant was not identified with that degree of certainty required by the rules of law; (4) the trial court erred in rulings upon the testimony; (5) the state's attorney made improper and prejudicial remarks; and (6) the court erred in instructing the jury.

The evidence on behalf of the people tends to establish the following: The company occupied the twelfth floor of the building in Chicago located at 360 North Michigan avenue, adjacent to Wacker drive. On Saturday, May 28, 1932, at the close of the business day, all the safes and the vault in the offices and the outside office doors were locked. The office was not opened for business on Decoration Day. On May 31, on the opening of the office, it was discovered that the combination on the safe or vault in the president's office had been knocked off, the shaft of a screwdriver without the handle was found sticking into the mechanism, and the door was open. The combinations on two other safes in other rooms of the offices had been knocked off and the doors opened. In the vault the company had a metal box in which was kept its supply of stamps. This box had been opened and no stamps remained in the box. The testimony showed that the company customarily carried approximately $60 in stamps at all times.

William Forbes, a watchman for the building, who also operated the elevator when occasion demanded, testified that about 3 p. m. of Decoration Day he received a signal to come to the ninth floor. He drove the elevator to that floor, where he saw Edwards, since deceased, a janitor of the building, in company with another man. Edwards said to Forbes, ‘Hold him, Bill!’ After the man entered the elevator Forbes drove the elevator to the basement of the building. On the way down the man said to Forbes, ‘Come on, now; give me your keys,’ to which Forbes replied that he did not have any keys with him. After releasing the defendant in the basement, Forbes drove the elevator back to the main floor and reported to some policemen there present that the man was in the basement. About thirty minutes later Forbes went to the basement and there observed that one of the basement windows that opened on the lower level of Wacker drive had been broken out and the defendant was gone.

Police Officer Ernest Pieske testified that about 3:25 p. m. on Memorial Day he went to the lower level of Wacker drive, where he had parked his car; that while he was walking there he heard the crash of glass east of him, and he immediately looked around and saw a man sticking his head out of a basement window of the building hereinbefore named. The officer immediately stepped behind a pillar and watched the man crawl out of the window. As soon as he got out the officer placed him under arrest and searched the man, whom he identified as the defendant. He found in his pockets a fountain pen, flash-light, a piece of a screwdriver, two parts of the broken handle of a screw-driver, two pieces of steel spring, a heavy hammer or sledge, and a penciled memorandum, hereinafter mentioned. After arresting him the officer placed defendant in the officer's automobile, and while the officer was entering the car from the opposite side defendant opened the right-hand door and jumped out. The officer caught him by his left coat pocket and tore it down to the seam but was not able to hold him. The officer thereupon drew his revolver and started running after the defendant, threatening to shoot, and commanded him to halt, which he did. He was taken to the detective bureau, where he was further searched, and stamps varying in denomination from 1 cent to 50 cents and of a total value of $51.59 were found in his coat pocket. He was then asked by the officer where he got the stamps, but he refused to answer. When arrested he was fully dressed, wore a sailor straw hat and a light overcoat. The evidence shows that there were pieces of jagged glass remaining in the window frame through which it is alleged he crawled. His trousers were torn along the sides and the tops of his hands were slightly cut.

On May 31 Forbes and Edwards went together to the detective bureau, and Forbes there identified the defendant as the man whom he had seen on the previous day in the building on the ninth floor and had taken to the basement. He testified that the man he saw in the building, and later at the detective bureau, had sandy hair, and that his left eye appeared to be smaller than the right eye. This peculiarity of the defendant's eyes is not denied. Forbes identified the defendant at the detective bureau from a line-up of five other men. Just prior to the line-up the defendant took off his straw hat and exchanged it for a felt hat with one of the prisoners in the line, the other prisoner putting on the defendant's straw hat. This exchange was made before Edwards and Forbes had had an opportunity to see the men in the line-up. At the time of his arrest the defendant gave his address as the Morrison Hotel. He did not live at the Morrison Hotel but at Glenview.

Charles E. Egan, a police lieutenant assigned to the state's attorney's office, testified that on April 4, 1934, he, accompanied by other officers, went to the defendant's home, on Wagner road. Lieutenant Egan testified that before going into the home or making his presence known he watched the movementsof the occupants of the house and saw the defendant dressed in trousers and a white shirt. When he went to the door Mrs. Reeves came to the door. The officers entered and found the defendant in bed, dressed in his underwear and with his hair smoothly combed. The bedding was smooth and undisturbed. Lieutenant Egan notified the defendant to appear in Judge Steffen's court the next morning. The defendant replied he was sick and could not come, and he did not appear next day at Judge Steffen's court. The officer returned to the defendant's home the next day, and on different occasions during the next three weeks, but was unable to find him. A search was made by the police of the city for the defendant, but he was not located.

The defendant testified in his own behalf. He stated that he and his wife left their home on Decoration Day, stopped about 1 o'clock p. m. at the home of Lloyd Kunkel, the defendant's nephew by marriage, who joined him and drove to the loop in the defendant's Lincoln sedan. The defendant parked his car at the lower level of Wacker drive, at Wabash avenue, about 1:30 or 1:45 o'clock. The three persons watched the parade on Michigan avenue until about 3:30 or 3:45 o'clock. The defendant then left his wife and Kunkel to get his car. He walked to the lower level of Wacker drive by the stairway in front of 330 Michigan avenue, which is on the east side of the avenue. After reaching the drive he walked across towards Wabash avenue. When about the center of 360 North Michigan avenue he heard a crash of glass and saw a man running south on the lower level. Officer Pieske then rushed up and arrested the defendant. The defendant stated that he told the officer about the man he had seen running; that he and the officer walked around the east side of the building, the direction which this hypothetical man had taken; that the defendant saw the broken glass and noticed a number of objects, amongst which were a screwdriver and sledge hammer, on the sidewalk, but did not make an inspection of them. He denied that he had any of the different objects on his person or in his pockets which Officer Pieske testified to finding in the clothing of the defendant. He categorically denied that he attempted to escape, that his trouser legs were torn, that there were any cuts or abrasions on his hands, or that he had been in the company's offices. He stated that he tore his overcoat pocket when he got out of the car at the detective bureau, and that he wore a...