People v. Williams

• Decision Date: 21 January 1975
• Docket Number: No. 46495,46495
• Citation: 322 N.E.2d 461,59 Ill.2d 557
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. James WILLIAMS, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 461

322 N.E.2d 461

59 Ill.2d 557

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. James WILLIAMS, Appellant.

No. 46495.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 21, 1975.

James J. Doherty, Public Defender, Chicago (Leonard V. Solomon, Asst. Public Defender, of counsel), for appellant.

William J. Scott, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and Bernard Carey, State's Atty., Chicago (James B. Zagel, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Patrick T. Driscoll, Jr., and Frank J. Parkerson, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel), for the People.

WARD, Justice:

James Williams, the defendant, and Gilbert Reese were indicted in the circuit court of Cook County for a burglary and robbery committed on August 25, 1971, in Cicero. In a second and separate indictment they were charged with a burglary and armed robbery, also committed in Cicero, but on August 24, 1971. Reese entered pleas of guilty to both indictments. Prior to the first indictment's coming to trial, the defendant moved to suppress a statement or statements of his which the prosecution would claim, the defendant said, constituted an adoption of or an assent to a confession given by Reese in which Reese implicated the defendant. This motion to suppress was sustained. The State did not appeal from the order of suppression but dismissed the indictment with leave to reinstate. In the case of the second indictment the defendant later made a motion to suppress the same statement or statements of his, but the motion was denied by the same judge who had granted the motion to suppress in the first indictment. In a bench trial on the second indictment the defendant was convicted of burglary and robbery. The appellate court affirmed (17 Ill.App.3d 285, 308 N.E.2d 39), and we granted leave to appeal.

The defendant contends here that under the doctrine of collateral estoppel the State was barred from introducing his statement in the prosecution under the second indictment. He argues that the admissibility of his statement had been litigated in the first motion to suppress and that the question could not be relitigated.

At the hearing on the first motion to suppress, the defendant testified that the day after he was arrested a police officer took him to a room where Gilbert Reese was being questioned. A police captain and other officers were also in the room. One of the officers said to him that Reese had confessed to 'everything' and had implicated the defendant. The defendant said the officer 'started asking me questions--I just said 'yes' to everything.' He said he answered 'yes' when he was asked whether he was involved and stated that 'yes' was the only thing he said to the officer. The defendant said Reese did not say anything when he was in the room.

Reese testified that he did not give his statement when the defendant was in the room, and he said he did not implicate the defendant in his confession. The record shows that the statement given by Reese was oral and was never reduced to writing.

Officer Steve Zalas of the Cicero police department testified that he had brought the defendant into the room where Reese had been questioned and had Reese repeat his statement in the defendant's presence. He testified that he then asked the defendant whether Reese's statement was true or not and the defendant said something to the effect that 'just what he said is what happened.'

At the conclusion of the hearing the court stated that the defendant's responses to Officer Zalas were 'subject to many interpretations' and that it would not admit testimony as to what the defendant had said to the officer. When the prosecutor asked the court whether it was suppressing the statements given by the defendant the court said it was ordering it suppressed.

When the second indictment was called for trial, the defendant asked the judge to rule that his order of suppression in the case of the first indictment would extend to any effort by the prosecution to use the statements of the defendant. The judge instead ordered that another hearing be held on the question of whether the defendant's statements should be suppressed. At the hearing Office Zalas's testimony was substantially the same as that given at the first hearing.

In addition, Captain Roland Brani and Officer Joseph Czechowski gave testimony at the second hearing which in general conformed with the testimony of Officer Zalas. These witnesses had been in the interrogation room with Reese when the defendant had been brought in.

The court denied the second motion to suppress, stating that there had not been sufficient evidence of any physical misconduct by the police. (The defendant had testified at the first hearing that he had been mistreated. He did not testify at the hearing on the second motion to suppress.)

The doctrine of collateral estoppel, which bars relitigation of a decided question, applies to criminal as well as civil procedings. (People v. Grayson, 58 Ill.2d 260, 317 N.E.2d 505; People v. Armstrong, 56 Ill.2d 159, 306 N.E.2d 14; People v. Haran, 27 Ill.2d 229, 232, 188 N.E.2d 707.) This was noted in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194, 25 L.Ed.2d 469, 475, where, in the course of describing the doctrine, the court said:

"Collateral estoppel' is an awkward phrase, but it stands for an extremely important principle in our adversary system of justice. It means simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit. Although first developed in civil litigation, collateral estoppel has been an established rule of federal criminal law at least...