People v. Rooney
| Decision Date | 10 April 1934 |
| Docket Number | No. 22215.,22215. |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. ROONEY et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Harry B. Miller, Judge.
John H. Rooney and others were convicted of murder, and they bring error.
Judgment affirmed.
Wm. Scott Stewart, of Chicago, for plaintiffs in error.
Otto Kerner, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and J. J. Neiger, of Springfield (Edward E. Wilson, J. Albert
Woll, and Henry E. Seyfarth, all of Chicago, of counsel), for defendant in error.
Plaintiffs in error were found guilty in the criminal court of Cook county of the murder of one Stanley Gross, a watchman employed by the firm of Goldblatt Bros. Plaintiffs in error John H. Rooney and Henry P. Berry were sentenced to the penitentiary for life, and plaintiff in error Rosalie Rizzo was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment therein. One John Jilson and one Herbert Arnold were likewise indicted with plaintiffs in error for this murder, but were not apprehended.
About 3 o'clock in the morning of May 23, 1933, Stanley Gross, while seated in an automobile in front of Goldblatt Bros.' store on Chicago avenue, in the city of Chicago, was killed by bullets fired from a passing automobile.Gross' companion was Edwin Wilcox, who testified in substance as follows: He (Wilcox) was on the front seat of the automobile and Gross was on the back seat. They had been employed by Goldblatt to watch for window breakers. About 3 o'clock he heard a shot and dropped to the floor of the car. As he did so he saw what he thought was a dark, maroon-colored coupé, with a white line running along under the windows, driven rapidly past them. As the car went by, the driver appeared to be firing a gun over his shoulder. One Charles McDowell, a watchman, testified that about 3 o'clock on that morning he saw a dark coupé coming from the direction of Goldblatt's and making a turn south onto Paulina street at a high rate of speed, and that he could see two faces in the coupé. Roman Thial testified that he saw the car drive by and that he thought it was a black sedan.
Edward McGowan, a detective, testified that his beat lay on Washington and Madison streets, and included the headquarters of the Circular Distributors Union, located at 79 North Racine avenue; that in pursuance of his duties he went hourly during the night to the union headquarters; that on this night he first went there at 7 o'clock; that he first saw Rooney and Berry, whom he pointed out in the courtroom, at the headquarters about 10 o'clock, and at 11 o'clock, when he again visited the headquarters, he again saw Rooney and Berry. He further testified in substance: Rooney introduced Alex Davidson to him and said that Davidson was going to take care of the place from that time on. At midnight he saw Rooney and Berry and a woman with another man at the headquarters. This man and woman were drinking at the bar. He did not see her in the courtroom. During his visits at 1 o'clock and at 2 o'clock Rooney and Berry were there. He saw Alex Davidson there after midnight, but did not know just what hour. Rooney and Berry were at the headquarters when he again appeared at 4 o'clock in the morning, and both had been drinking. He testified that his stays at the headquarters were brief; not over five or ten minutes.
Alex Davison testified that he was a member of the Circular Distributors Union and on the morning of May 22 went to the headquarters about 10 o'clock and remained there until the next morning. He further testified in substance as follows: Berry came to the headquarters about 5 o'clock that afternoon. Rooney was there and they began drinking at the bar. Until about 9:30 a number of persons were there, but by that time all had left except Rooney, Berry, and himself. A man and woman came in later and remained at the bar, drinking, until about midnight. Rooney told the witness that he figured there were some men from the state's attorney's office in a room on the third floor of the building across the way watching the union headquarters, and asked the witness to walk around the building and see if a Packard car was parked there and whether a window on the third floor of the building was vacant. Witness did so, and on his return reported that the window was open but he could see no car. About 9:30 Rooney asked him to go and buy him a pair of field glasses, and he went to Fogel's pawnshop, on Madison street, and purchased a pair of field glasses and brought them to Rooney, who went to the window and looked through the glasses at the window across the street, but was unable to see clearly because of the darkness. Rooney cursed Goldblatt for having the police from the state's attorney's office up there, and said, ‘Damn them, I will get even with them.’ Some time before 2 o'clock Rooney asked witness to go out and make a long distance telephone call and gave him a number, Berwyn 2981, and told him to forget the number after he had called it. The witness left the building and went to a telephone about a half block away. He called Berwyn 2981 and asked the party who answered if it was Rose, and she asked him who was calling. He identified himself by a circumstance which he detailed in his testimony and which they both remembered, and she asked him what was wanted. He replied, ‘Johnny told me to tell you to bring your car and an extra one and park the car a half block away from the union hall on Racine avenue,’ to which she replied, ‘All right; I will do that.’ The witness further testified in substance: He (the witness) returned to headquarters and told Rooney what he had done, and Rooney told him to forget about it. Rosalie Rizzo came to the union headquarters about forty-five minutes later and Rooney let her in. Before she arrived, Rooney and Berry were drinking and talking about going over to Boldblatt's and scaring the people there. When Rizzo came in Rooney said, ‘Did you bring it?’ and she replied, ‘Yes.’ She had a big pocketbook, from which she took a gun and handed it to Rooney, and he handed it back to her with another gun which he took from his pocket, and she put them in her pocketbook. He said, ‘Never mind that; we have work to do.’ Earlier in the evening witness had seen the gun which Rooney gave Rizzo. It was in Rooney's possession. When Rooney went to the window with the field glasses he said he was going to throw a couple of slugs at the window, and witness told him he thought it was foolish, because whoever was there would know where they came from, to which Rooney replied, ‘You are right,’ and put the gun back. When Rizzo arrived Berry was dozing at the bar, and Rooney said to him, ‘Come on, Hogan; we have work to do,’ and they started down stairs. Rizzo said, ‘I am going with you,’ to which Rooney replied, ‘You stay where you are at.’ She said, ‘No, I have gone with you other times too,’ and he said, ‘Well, come on.’ The three then walked down the stairs. Rooney had told Rizzo that she should take his car and scout around Goldblatt's to see if the coast was clear while he was going for the other car. Witness saw Rooney's car parked across the street from the headquarters.He saw it pull away after they left the headquarters, with Rizzo driving. Berry and Rooney walked up Racine avenue and got into a Plymouth coupé standing about a half block from the union headquarters and drove away. They returned about 3 o'clock, having been gone fifteen or twenty minutes. Witness went down stairs and opened the door and let them in. Rooney and Berry came in first, and Rizzo ran across the street from where she had parked Rooney's car. Rooney returned to Rizzo the gun which she had brought and told her to take the Plymouth back and ditch the gun, and she then left. After they had gone upstairs to the headquarters Rooney said, ‘You ought to see the way he keeled over; I let him have it.’ Witness asked him who it was, and he said it was the guard. Berry said, ‘You ought to see the way he let him have it.’ Rooney then told witness that if anybody came up and asked whether he (Rooney) had left the headquarters, witness should say that he had not, and that witness replied, ‘All right; I will do that, Johnny.’ Rooney and Berry remained at the headquarters the balance of the night. When Berry left, about 7 o'clock, he was very much intoxicated and a cab was called to take him home. Rooney left the headquarters about 10 o'clock, and after that the witness did not see him around there, although prior to May 23 he was there almost every day. Berry came back to the headquarters that afternoon and was still intoxicated and said to the witness, ‘If anybody wants to know if I was up here, you say I wasn't here,’ to which witness replied, ‘All right.’ Witness saw Berry three or four times after that, and Berry told him to stick to the same story he had given him—that he was not up there the night it happened. This witness also testified that at 1 o'clock in the morning of the shooting Berry told him to go down to the building where the men from the state's attorney's office were and throw a brick through the window, and that the witness told him he was crazy and that he would not do it, and that Berry left the headquarters and returned in a short time, saying that he broke the plate glass window in the store underneath the window of the room in which the men from the state's attorney's office were. He also testified that when Rizzo came to the headquarters she talked with Rooney about being intoxicated, and that Rooney told her he was going to Goldblatt's and throw a couple of slugs at the window and throw a couple of slugs at the watchmen and scare them, because Goldblatt was causing him a lot of trouble, calling men from the state's attorney's office.
Joseph Goldblatt, vice president of the Goldblatt Department Store, testified, in substance: He first met Rooney in September, 1930, when he came to his...
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