People v. Washington

• Court: Appellate Court of Illinois
• Writing for the Court: DEMPSEY; McGLOON, P.J., and McNAMARA
• Citation: People v. Washington, 341 N.E.2d 39, 35 Ill.App.3d 92 (Ill. App. 1975)
• Decision Date: 18 December 1975
• Docket Number: No. 61563,61563
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Harvey J. WASHINGTON, Defendant-Appellant.

Page 39

341 N.E.2d 39

35 Ill.App.3d 92

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Harvey J. WASHINGTON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 61563.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Third Division.

Dec. 18, 1975.

James J. Doherty, Public Defender, Anthony Pinelli and Lee D. Bastianoni, Asst. Public Defenders, Chicago, for defendant-appellant.

Bernard Carey, State's Atty., Laurence J. Bolon, John T. Theis and Linda Ann Miller, Asst. State's Attys., Chicago, for plaintiff-appellee.

DEMPSEY, Justice.

In a non-jury trial the defendant, Harvey Washington, was convicted of the offense of unlawful use of weapons (Ill.Rev.Stat., 1973, ch. 38, par. 24--1(a) (10) and was sentenced to two years probation with the condition that the first six months be served in the House of Correction. His contentions on appeal are that the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he carried a weapon on his person, and that the complaint which charged him with the offense was fatally defective because it did not allege that the offense was committed in the City of Chicago.

Chicago Police Officer Sonya Worth testified that on August 4, 1974, at 4:20 in the morning, at a time when there was no other traffic and it was quiet on the street, she was sitting in the passenger seat of a squad car with her partner, Don Wojcik, who was driving. With them was a citizen who had flagged down their car a few moments earlier. She observed the defendant behind a car which was parked on her side of the street. He was about 10 or 15 feet from her and as she started to get out the squad car she saw him bend down and heard 'a metallic kind of a click.' The defendant came around the parked car toward the street, and she held him at gun point while her partner went to the curb side of the car and recovered a revolver from the ground where the defendant had been standing. The defendant denied that he bent down or that he threw the weapon to the ground. He said that he kept on walking when he saw the police car.

We find that the circumstantial evidence proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant carried the weapon on his person and discarded it. Although Officer Worth did not actually see the weapon on the defendant's person since he was standing behind a parked car, she was only a few feet from him when she observed him bend down and heard a sound that could have been made by a falling gun. She then saw her partner find a revolver where the defendant had been standing. In the early morning, no other persons were in the neighborhood. The trial court did not have to believe the defendant's testimony in the face of this evidence. The testimony of a single witness is sufficient to support a conviction if it is positive and credible, as it was here. People v. Garmon (1974), 19 Ill.App.3d 192, 311 N.E.2d 299.

A second contention is that the complaint failed to properly charge an offense in that it did not allege that the defendant carried the gun within the corporate limits of a city. The statute provides:

'(a) A person commits the offense of unlawful use of weapons when he knowingly:

(10) Carries or possesses in a...