People v. Williams

• Decision Date: 30 November 1962
• Docket Number: No. 36711,36711
• Citation: 26 Ill.2d 190,186 N.E.2d 353
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Eddie WILLIAMS, Plaintiff in Error.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 353

186 N.E.2d 353

26 Ill.2d 190

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

No. 36711.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 30, 1962.

Ted J. Fiflis, 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 Rudolph L. Janega and Dean H. Bilton, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel), for defendant in error.

DAILY, Justice.

Defendant, Eddie Williams, was convicted of murder after a jury trial in the criminal court of Cook County and was sentenced to the penitentiary for life. On this writ of error he contends that both the incompetency of his counsel and improper argument of the prosecutor denied him a fair trial, and that two confessions he signed were improperly admitted into evidence.

For the purposes of this writ of error, where the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict is not challenged, it is enough to say that the victim of the homicide was a woman with whom defendant had formerly lived as husband and wife, and that he fatally stabbed her, outside the presence of any witnesses, during an argument which arose after he importuned her to resume their meretricious relationship. These facts were embodied in the two written and signed confessions given by defendant to the authorities, and we shall first direct ourselves to the contention that such confessions were improperly admitted into evidence. Background facts essential to this phase of the review show that the first confession was given to police officers Jones and Seaberry, while the second was made in the presence of the same two officers together with Edward C. Riordan, an assistant State's Attorney, and Emmett Smith, a shorthand reporter. After the latter's notes had been transcribed, another assistant State's Attorney, Joseph A. Weber, was present with Riordan when the second document was signed by defendant. All of those named, except officer Seaberry, were produced as witnesses at the trial. The defendant, who denied his guilt on the witness stand, admitted that he had signed the two statements, but testified that he had not read them and that they had not been read to him.

It is now a familiar rule in this jurisdiction that a confession is not admissible in evidence if the defendant raises the objection that it was obtained by duress unless each material witness on the issue is either produced or his absence explained. (People v. Sims, 21 Ill.2d 425, 173 N.E.2d 494; People v. Dale, 20 Ill.2d 532, 171 N.E.2d 1.) No contention has been made in this case, either here or in the court below, that defendant's confessions were involuntarily given so as to bring the rule into operation. However, seeking to gain some benefit from the failure of officer Seaberry to appear as a witness at the trial, defendant claims that his confessions were induced and procured by fraud and argues that the same rule as to the production of material witnesses should apply. The objection of fraud in the inducement or procurement was never made and there is no proof which sustains the charge of fraud.

Defendant admitted that he had signed several statements after his arrest and, if we understand his position correctly, his theory of fraud is predicated on a claim that he did not know what he was signing.

In this regard, it was defendant's testimony that he could read a little, but that he had not read either statement or had them read to him. For the prosecution, however, officer Jones testified that defendant had read the first statement before signing it, while assistant State's Attorney Weber testified he had read the second statement to defendant before the latter affixed his signature thereto. While the evidence is in conflict, we cannot say that the bare denials by defendant, who admitted that he could read and that he signed the statements, were sufficient to raise an issue that the confessions had been induced and procured by fraud.

During the course of his opening statement to the jury the prosecutor, after first summarizing the facts the State intended to prove, then asserted: 'I am sure after you have heard this case, you will feel as we do that defendant is guilty as charged.' Again, upon the occasion of his final summation, the prosecutor concluded by saying: '* * * then coupling all that with statements made by defendant, I think that when you go back there, you will reach the same conclusion that we have reached, and that is that Eddie Williams is guilty of the charge of murder.' While no objections were made to these remarks at the trial, defendant now contends they were in violation of the rule which prohibits a State's Attorney from expressing his personal opinion of guilt and require reversal. (See: People v. Anderson, 406 Ill. 585, 592, 94 N.E.2d 429; People v. Hoffman, 399 Ill. 57, 65, 77 N.E.2d 195; People v. Rothe, 358 Ill. 52, 56, 192 N.E. 777.) It is, however, proper for a prosecutor to argue or express his opinion that the accused is guilty, where he states, or it is apparent, as was true in this case, that such opinion is based solely on the evidence. People v. Lawson, 331 Ill. 380, 394, 163 N.E. 149; People v. Black, 317...