People v. Williams

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: HOUSE
• Citation: People v. Williams, 195 N.E.2d 715, 30 Ill.2d 166 (Ill. 1964)
• Decision Date: 22 January 1964
• Docket Number: No. 37649,37649
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. James WILLIAMS, Plaintiff in Error.

Page 715

195 N.E.2d 715

30 Ill.2d 166

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. James WILLIAMS, Plaintiff in Error.

No. 37649.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 22, 1964.

Stuart M. Weis, Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and Daniel P. Ward, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach and E. Michael O'Brien, Asst. Attys. Gen., and Elmer C. Kissane and Matthew J., Moran, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel), for defendant in error.

HOUSE, Justice.

James Williams was found guilty of armed robbery by a jury in the criminal court of Cook County and sentenced by the court to the penitentiary for a term of 10 to 30 years. A writ of error has been issued to review his conviction.

About 6:30 P.M. on August 13, 1961, two men entered a tavern on the south side of Chicago, drew their revolvers and announced a robbery. One of them, later identified as the defendant, took money from the cash register and from Bernice Paulavicius, the tavern owner. The other robber, later identified as James Dority, took money from Kenneth Balentine and his wife, who were customers in the tavern. Hugh Burmeister, a customer, entered the tavern during the robbery and the robbers took his money. Burmeister and Balentine were forced to lie on the floor and Balentine's wife was slapped in the face by Dority. After the robbers fled, a woman ran into the tavern and called off a license plate number which Balentine wrote on a match box. The license number was traced to defendant and he was arrested.

The next day all four occurrence witnesses identified defendant from a line-up of five men. The following day the robbery victims again identified him from a line-up and they identified him at the trial. Neither defendant nor Dority testified at their trial.

It is argued that Balentine and Burmeister only had a few...