People v. Robinson

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: CREBS
• Citation: People v. Robinson, 263 N.E.2d 57, 46 Ill.2d 229 (Ill. 1970)
• Decision Date: 29 September 1970
• Docket Number: No. 42384,42384
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Charles E. ROBINSON, Appellant.

Page 57

263 N.E.2d 57

46 Ill.2d 229

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Charles E. ROBINSON, Appellant.

No. 42384.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Sept. 29, 1970.

Gerald W. Getty, Public Defender, Chicago (George L. Lincoln, and James J. Doherty, Asst. Public Defenders, of counsel), for appellant.

William J. Scott, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and Edward V. Hanrahan, State's Atty., Chicago (James B. Zagel, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Elmer C. Kissane, and James W. Reilley, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel), for the People.

CREBS, Justice.

In a jury trial in the circuit court of Cook County Charles E. Robinson was found guilty of the crime of armed robbery and the court sentenced him to a term of two to eight years in the penitentiary. He has appealed alleging that his constitutional rights were violated in that the conduct of the trial court denied him a fair hearing on his motion to suppress identification, thereby depriving him of due process of law. In addition, he alleges certain trial errors relative to admission and exclusion of evidence and undue restriction of cross-examination of the prosecution witness.

The robbery occurred on August 28, 1968, at about 4:25 P.M. on the streets of Chicago, Otis Shanks, the victim, was a truck driver who had just completed his meat delivery to a grocery store when he was approached by a man, whom he later identified as defendant, and, at the point of a gun, was robbed of $163. At the trial Shanks testified that with the gun in his ribs he observed the robber closely as the money was removed from his pants pocket; that after calling the police and giving them an account of the robbery and a description of the robber he saw the man again later that evening on a street corner, but after hailing a police car for assistance the man had disappeared; that the next evening he and a police officer toured the neighborhood in a car and after viewing three of four groups of youths congregated in different areas he finally spotted defendant in another group of six or eight people at about 9:05 P.M.; that he pointed him out as the man who had robbed him, and the police placed him under arrest. The victim and of the police officers who arrested defendant were the sole witnesses for the prosecution.

Under these circumstances there is no question that a defendant has a right to a fair and impartial hearing to determine whether his identification was based solely on the victim's observation of the robber at the time of the crime or whether it was improperly influenced either by actions of the investigative officers or other extraneous factors that may have unduly affected the judgment and conclusion of the witness. (Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199.) In People v. Blumenshine, 42 Ill.2d 508, 250 N.E.2d 152, we quoted from United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149, and listed several factors to be considered by the trial court in deciding whether an identification has been unduly influenced by unfair procedure: "for example, the prior opportunity (how long and how well) to observe the alleged criminal act, the existence (or absence) of any discrepancy between any pre-lineup description and the defendant's actual description, * * * failure to identify the defendant on a prior occasion, * * *' and any acquaintance with the suspect prior to the crime.'

Here, a hearing was held on defendant's motion to suppress identification but it is the contention of the defendant that the trial court arbitrarily prevented him from offering any releavant evidence in support of his motion and that in effect his so-called hearing was little better than no hearing at all. We have examined the record and find that in defense counsel's attempt to examine the robbery victim the court sustained the State's objection to all of the following questions: whether he had ever seen the robber before or knew his name, whether he had given a description to the police, and if so, what description, whether the police had shown him any photographs to assist him in his identification, whether the police officer had directed his attention to defendant at the time of his arrest, whether he had any conversation with the officer just prior to his identification of defendant, whether, subsequent to defendant's arrest, he had been asked to identify him again while defendant was...