People v. White

• Decision Date: 10 October 1911
• Parties: PEOPLE v. WHITE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

251 Ill. 67

95 N.E. 1036

PEOPLE

v.WHITE.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 20, 1911.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 10, 1911.

Error to Circuit Court, La Salle County; Samuel C. Stough, judge.

Lawrence White was convicted of manslaughter, and he brings error. Affirmed.Browne & Wiley and Walter A. Panneck, for plaintiff in error.

William H. Stead, Atty. Gen., and Charles S. Cullen, State's Atty. (Harold L. Richolson, of counsel), for the People.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

In the early morning of Monday, May 9, 1910, Lawrence White, plaintiff in error, assaulted one of the night waiters in the day and night restaurant of Harry Levy, in the city of Ottawa, and sugar bowls, salt cellars, and other articles of crockery on the lunch counter were thrown to the floor and their contents scattered, either by being thrown at the waiter or knocked off. The waiter called Levy, who was sleeping in his residence on the second floor of an adjoining building, and he came downstairs in answer to the call, partly dressed, with an undershirt, trousers, and shoes on, and inquired the cause of the trouble. There was some talk about the affair between him and the plaintiff in error, and the plaintiff in error shot him; the bullet entering the lower part of the left breast. Levy died from the gunshot wound on Wednesday, May 11th, at half past 10 o'clock in the forenoon, and the plaintiff in error was indicted for murder in the circuit court of La Salle county. The only defense at the trial was self-defense, and the plaintiff in error was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary.

[1] The defendant objected to any evidence of what had occurred before Harry Levy entered the restaurant, on the ground that it was wholly unconnected with the killing of Levy and would tend to prejudice the jury against the defendant. The evidence in any case should be confined to the issue being tried, but where there is a logical and natural connection between two acts, or where they form but one transaction, proof of both is proper. In this case the property of Levy had been thrown about the restaurant and some of it destroyed, and his servant had been assaulted in his place of business. He came down when he was called, acting within his rights, to investigate the affair, and it was solely concerning that matter that there was any trouble between him and the defendant. In view of the defense made, it was especially necessary to know whether Levy was an aggressor or making a proper inquiry in reference to a transaction in his own restaurant and in relation to his own property. The transactions were directly associated with each other by a perfectly natural connection, and the circumstances were such that the jury would not understand the situation or be able to decide the case intelligently without knowledge of what had occurred. The evidence was properly admitted.

There was no material controversy as to what happened between the defendant and the waiter. The defendant, who was a saloon keeper, came from his saloon with his bartender, William Hallowell, at half past 5 o'clock in the morning to the restaurant, and they each ordered a ham and egg sandwich and a cup of coffee. The night men were still on duty, consisting of Loanke, the cook, and Reinert and Anderson, two waiters. Anderson waited on the defendant and his companion, and they ate their lunch at the lunch counter. The defendant asked for a fork, and Reinert gave him one and afterward came around the end of the counter and sat down on a stool next the defendant, either voluntarily or at the invitation of the defendant. It is uncertain just what was said between the defendant and Reinert, but there was nothing said on either side which would provoke an assault. Whatever it was, Reinert jumped up and ran around back of the counter. The defendant reached across the counter and got hold of him, and, Reinert attempting to get away, they struggled along the counter. There were three or four groups of dishes on the counter, consisting of a sugar bowl, salt cellar, vinegar cruet, and the like, and the testimony for the prosecution was that whenever they reached a group of those things the defendant would let go of Reinert with one hand and throw the things at him. The defendant claimed that they were pushed off the counter in the scuffle. At any rate, those things and coffee cups were thrown on the floor and sugar and salt scattered about. When they got along part way to the kitchen, Reinert got loose from the defendant and ran into the kitchen. The defendant then went back to his overcoat, which was either hanging on a hook at the washroom door or lying over the cigar case, and put it on. There was a revolver in one of the pockets, and the cook testified that the defendant then came to the door of the kitchen with the revolver, looking for Reinert, but Reinert had gone upstairs and called the proprietor, Levy, who came down into the restaurant, back of the counter. At this point the first substantial difference between the witnesses began. The testimony for the prosecution was that Anderson was sweeping up sugar, broken saucers, and cups, and things that were behind the counter; that Levy asked what the trouble was about, and the defendant said that he was not to blame, but the waiter was, and that the waiter must be crazy; that Levy asked him to leave, and White became angry, talking loudly and calling Levy a ‘sheeny bastard,’ and said if he did not want to let Reinert go he could go to hell; that Levy told White several times to to out of the restaurant, and that the defendant then shot Levy and backed out of the restaurant door, and that Levy, after being shot, picked up a revolver from under the counter and shot at the defendant three times but did not hit him. The defendant and Hallowell testified that the defendant told Levy the difficulty was not his fault and sought to excuse himself; that Levy said to the defendant that if it was trouble he was looking for he would give him all he wanted of it; that Levy was pointing a revolver at defendant, and Hallowell said to Levy to put down the gun and he would get the defendant out, but the defendant, who was standing with his hands in his trousers pockets, said ‘Let him shoot!’ and Levy shot, and that after Levy shot defendant took the revolver out of his overcoat and shot him, and Levy shot at the defendant twice afterward.

[2] This is the substance of the testimony, and, as the question to be determined by the jury was whether the defendant killed Levy in self-defense, it is manifest that the conclusion depended mainly upon the credibility of the witnesses. Hallowell and the defendant gave the testimony intended to establish the defense, and it is contended that the court erred in permitting the prosecution to cross-examine Hallowell as to his previous life and occupation, because it not only discredited him, but tended to show that the defendant was guilty of offenses against the law. On the direct examination Hallowell testified that neither he nor the defendant was drunk or intoxicated at the time, and on the cross-examination he was interrogated as to where and how he had spent the night and what he had drunk. He said he had been up all night in the defendant's saloon and had drunk probably three or four drinks of whisky. If this tended to prove that the defendant kept his saloon open all night, it had already been proven without objection. Anderson had testified that a man came into the restaurant between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning and wanted a bottle of beer and half a pint of whisky; that Anderson called up the defendant and asked him if the saloon was open, and that the man gave Anderson a dollar, and he went to the saloon and got two bottles of beer and a half pint of whisky. In any view, the cross-examination was clearly proper upon the subject about which the witness testified on the direct examination.

[3] It is also proper to cross-examine a witness as to his occupation and other matters which enable to jury to determine what weight ought to be given to his testimony. This witness testified that he was a bartender, and that he had tended bar for the defendant for 18 months. The prosecution then showed, by further cross-examination, that he had put in more time in working for gambling houses in the last 15 years than in tending bar or running a saloon; that he had been employed in the gambling houses of the city, operating gambling tools and devices; that the greater part of his business had been running gambling devices in gambling houses or playing what is called ‘house money’ in poker games, which meant that the saloon or gambling place furnished the money played for; that his business as a gambler frequently obliged him to be up all night as often as once or twice a week, and that frequently on Saturday and Sunday nights he would be up all night. The court did not permit any question as to what work the witness did in the defendant's saloon, or what took place there, and there was no attempt to make any such proof after the question was raised and the ruling made. It is argued that the cross-examination tended to show that the defendant ran a gambling house and was an offender against the law. But if there was any inference of that kind from what the witness said, it was a necessary and inevitable one in the exercise of the right that the prosecution had to bring before the jury the occupation and habits of life of the witness. The law does not permit proof of other offenses, not connected with the charge upon which the defendant is being tried (Addison v. People, 193 Ill. 405, 62 N. E. 235;Brom v. People, 216 Ill. 148, 74 N. E. 790);...