People v. Sullivan

• Decision Date: 19 May 1961
• Docket Number: No. 35457,35457
• Citation: 174 N.E.2d 860,22 Ill.2d 122
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Leroy SULLIVAN, Plaintiff in Error.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 860

174 N.E.2d 860

22 Ill.2d 122

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Leroy SULLIVAN, Plaintiff in Error.

No. 35457.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 19, 1961.

John J. Kelly, Jr., Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., and Daniel P. Ward, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach, Asst. Atty. Gen., and John T. Gallagher and James R. Thompson, Asst. State's Attys., Chicago, of counsel), for defendant in error.

HERSHEY, Justice.

Plaintiff in error, hereinafter called defendant, was convicted of the crime of armed robbery and sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of from one year to life. He obtained a transcript of the record pursuant to Rule 65-1, Ill.Rev.Stat.1959, c. 110, § 101.65-1 and brings this writ of error, as a poor person, for review of his conviction. We have jurisdiction on writ of error, this being a criminal case above the grade of misdemeanor.

There is no question but that two men, named Beamon and Smallwood, committed an armed robbery on September 26, 1958, at the World Camera Shop at 11511 South Michigan Avenue, in Chicago. The principal question on this writ of error is whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction of defendant as an accessory.

Defendant was arrested by officer Michael Hogan as he was entering a car parked at the corner of 115th Street and Michigan Avenue shortly after the robbery. Hogan testified he had responded to a call at the camera shop, where he found that officer Orville Kent had apprehended Smallwood. After talking with Smallwood, Hogan went to the corner of 115th and Michigan, where he found a Chrysler automobile parked. He watched the automobile until defendant entered it and began to start it, whereupon Hogan arrested defendant and took him to a police station. Hogan said he recognized defendant from the description he had been given. Hogan testified that he talked with defendant at the police station and that defendant stated that he had picked up Beamon and Smallwood and had driven out to 115th and Michigan, having first driven past the camera shop to 119th Street and then turning around and coming back and parking at 115th and Michigan, where the other two men got out of the car. Officer Kent, who was present at this conversation, corroborated Hogan's testimony and added that defendant told them that after Beamon and Smallwood left the car they turned south on Michigan Avenue, that a short time later he heard a commotion on Michigan Avenue and left the car to see what was going on, that when he waw Beamon and Smallwood in the custody of the police he returned to the car and, as he started the motor, was arrested. The owner of the camera shop estified that defendant had been in the store about two days before the robbery inquiring about a camera, and that he had followed defendant outside to see where he was going when he left. No evidence was presented on behalf of defendant.

While it is possible to devise speculative hypotheses consistent with defendant's innocence, we cannot say that the evidence against defendant is insufficient to sustain the conviction. As we said in People v. Russell, 17 Ill.2d 328, 331, 161 N.E.2d 309, 311, '* * * the requirement that the defendant's guilt be proved beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean that the jury must disregard the inferences that flow normally from the evidence before it. * * * The jury was not required to search out a series of potential explanations compatible with...