People v. Rozanski

Decision Date06 October 1915
Docket NumberNo. 10024.,10024.
Citation268 Ill. 607,109 N.E. 711
PartiesPEOPLE v. ROZANSKI.
CourtIllinois Supreme Court

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Error to Circuit Court, Washington County; George A. Crow, Judge.

Teofil Rozanski was convicted, and brings error. Affirmed.

O'Donnell & O'Donnell, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

P. J. Lucey, Atty. Gen., J. Paul Carter, State's Atty., of Nashville, George P. Ramsey, of Springfield, and Eugene P. Morris, of Watseka, for the People.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

At the October term, 1914, of the circuit court of Washington county, the plaintiff in error, Teofil Rozanski, was found guilty by a jury of an assault with intent to murder his father, Frank Rozanski. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were overruled and he was sentenced to the Southern Illinois penitentiary, at Chester. A writ of error has brought the record to this court for review.

Frank Rozanski lived alone on a farm which had been his homestead, but which had been conveyed to his son, Teofil Rozanski, the plaintiff in error, who was bound to furnish him with supplies. After the death of the mother the father and son became embittered against each other, and for about four years were not on speaking terms, and there had been lawsuits between them on matters arising out of their contract relations. The defendant lived on another farm about 1 1/2 miles distant, and on December 9, 1913, he and his son Nick Rozanski, about 11 years old, rode from Radom in a wagon with Frank Greskiewicz to his father's home. The defendant and his son got out of the wagon at the end of a lane leading to the residence, and went first to where two sons of the defendant were chopping wood in the timber for the father, Frank Rozanski. All four then went to the gate of the yard at the house, and the three sons stood by the fence while the defendant went to the house, where the trouble occurred. The father, Frank Rozanski, was the principal witness for the people, and he testified through an interpreter. His testimony was that it was half past 4 in the afternoon, as he was sitting in the kitchen by the stove smoking his pipe, when the defendant came into the room and started a fight; that the defendant did not say anything but threw him down on the floor and grabbed him by the throat; that he got on top of the defendant and struck him several times with a stick of hickory stovewood, and took him by the collar and threw him outside on the porch and closed the door; that he said to the defendant, ‘A straight road for your home;’ that he tried to lock the door and while holding it stood alongside the door, and the defendant fired several shots through the closed door, and one of the bullets inflicted a flesh wound in his abdomen; that when the shot struck him it began to burn, and he left the door and ran away for his life, and that he did not see the defendant's sons at that time. In riding along the road in the wagon the defendant and his son Nick passed the home of Mike Kujawa, a neighbor, and he saw them get out of the wagon and go up the lane toward the house. The house was in the timber, so that he could not see them when they got there, but about 15 minutes after they got out of the wagon he heard five shots close together, and he heard the noise of tramping after the shots were fired. Harve Calloway and M. B. Pawlowski testified that there were five bullet holes through the door, and the lower part of the door was all kicked out, as the witnesses said. The shots were from the outside. The holes showed splinters on the inside, and the lower part of the door was driven in from the outside. The wound made by the bullet was about 2 1/2 inches in length, cutting the skin and tissues underneath, but the bullet did not penetrate the abdomen.

The defendant and his three sons testified, and each gave the same account of the occurrence. The defendant said that he and his son Nick rode with Frank Greskiewicz from Radom; that they went to the two sons, who were chopping wood, and all walked to the gate into the yard and he hollered, but no one answered; that he knocked on the door and said, ‘Hello, Pa!’ that his father opened the door and had a club in his hand and hit him on the head and struck him several times while he was trying to get up, and shoved him over backwards; that the boys jumped over the fence and helped him up, and they went home, and that he never had a revolver, did not shoot one or make the holes in the door. Each son testified that the father opened the door and hit the defendant with a piece of stovewood; that the defendant fell down and the father kicked him and threw him off the porch onto the ground; that they jumped over the fence and picked the defendant up and went home; that the defendant did not have a revolver, and never had one, and that there was no shooting there. Nick and the defendant's daughter, Maggie, testified that they got home at 5 o'clock. Theodore Kitkowski, a bailiff, testified that when he served the subpoena on Frank Rozanski he said that he had a club in his hand and his hand on the door, and as the defendant stepped in the door he struck him on the head and would have killed him on the spot.

The father testified to a state of facts which showed the defendant to be...

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