People v. Willie
| Decision Date | 09 March 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 78-362,78-362 |
| Citation | 69 Ill.App.3d 964,388 N.E.2d 102,26 Ill.Dec. 478 |
| Parties | , 26 Ill.Dec. 478 PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Edwin WILLIE, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Bernard Carey, State's Atty., Chicago, for plaintiff-appellant; Lee T. Hettinger, Mary Ann Callum, Asst. State's Attys., Chicago, of counsel.
Jerome Feldman and Judith A. Halprin, Chicago, for defendant-appellee.
The sole issue presented by the State in this appeal is whether the trial court erred in dismissing the indictment against defendant for attempt robbery.
The occurrence which took place at Bethany Methodist Hospital involved Mary Ann Goecke, a nurse. The only person to testify before the grand jury was police officer Phillip Delia, who did not observe the occurrence and testified only to what Goecke had told him. Neither Goecke nor Fred Luce, a security guard who had observed the occurrence, appeared before the grand jury. Delia's testimony, in pertinent part, was as follows:
"Q Mr. Delia, did you on the 31st of July, some time in the early morning hours, arrest a man now known as Edwin Willie?
A I did.
Q Where did you arrest him and under what circumstances?
A I arrested him in the area between Ashland and Paulina, 4900 block, after he was chased by a security guard. I joined in the chase after he attempted to rob a nurse.
Q He was apprehended, was he not?
A That's correct.
Q Did you have occasion to talk to the nurse, namely, Mary Ann Goecke?
A I did.
Q Did she give you an account of an incident that happened at the Emergency Room at the hospital she worked in?
A That's correct.
Q That's at 2500 North Paulina?
A That's correct.
Q Which hospital is that, Officer?
A Bethany Methodist.
Q What did she relate?
A He approached her at the door of the Emergency Room as she was entering work and Mr. Willie wouldn't allow her in the door. She said, 'Excuse me,' and he wouldn't allow her in. He said, 'Give it to me,' and grabbed her throat with his left hand and her purse with his right hand and tried to take the purse from her.
Q Anyway, he met her at the door, did he not, and demanded something from her; grabbed her throat and tried to take her purse?
A That's correct.
Q She fought him off?
A That's correct; attempted to fight him off.
Q Was the incident observed?
A Yes it was.
Q By whom?
A Fred Luce, Security Guard.
Q Did you arrive on the scene to assist the person, Mr. Luce?
A I did.
Q He tried to give chase and it was then you were attracted by the chase and made your efforts to apprehend?
A Yes."
Defendant moved to dismiss the indictment, asserting that his due process rights were violated when the prosecutor presented hearsay evidence but failed to demonstrate a compelling justification for its use and did not inform the grand jury of its hearsay nature or that direct testimony was available. The motion to dismiss was granted, and this appeal followed.
OPINIONInitially, we note that an indictment may be dismissed on the basis of the ten grounds delineated in section 114-1(a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Ill.Rev.Stat.1977, ch. 38, par. 114-1(a)), and it was held in People v. Lawson (1977), 67 Ill.2d 449, 455, 10 Ill.Dec. 478, 480, 367 N.E.2d 1244, 1246, that a trial court also has the inherent authority to dismiss an indictment "where there has been a clear denial of due process." There is no contention by either party that any provision of section 114-1(a) is applicable, but defendant argues that he was denied due process by the prosecutor's presentation of officer Delia's hearsay testimony without demonstrating a compelling justification for its use rather than that of Goecke's or Luce's, or informing the grand jury either of its hearsay nature or the availability of the direct testimony of Goecke.
An indictment based solely on hearsay testimony is constitutionally acceptable. (Costello v. United States (1956), 350 U.S. 359, 76 S.Ct. 406, 100 L.Ed. 397; People v. Jones (1960), 19 Ill.2d 37, 166 N.E.2d 1.) Defendant has not cited, nor have we found, any case in which, as he urges, this rule has been qualified for constitutional reasons by a requirement that the grand jury be advised either of the hearsay nature of testimony or of the availability of direct testimony. Furthermore, he has failed to show that he was prejudiced by the manner in which the evidence was presented. Neither does he argue that the grand jury would have been less likely to indict had the prosecutor given the proposed admonitions or that he was placed at personal disadvantage in any respect by the failure to do so.
Defendant does, however, refer us to several cases in support of his contention that his due process rights were in fact violated. He first cites Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), 408 U.S. 665, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 L.Ed.2d 626, and emphasizes the following quotation from the opinion:
"(A) grand jury investigation 'is not fully carried out until every available clue has been run down and all witnesses examined in every proper way to find out if a crime has been committed.' " 408 U.S. at 701, 92 S.Ct. at 2667, 33 L.Ed.2d at 651 (quoting United States v. Stone (2d Cir. 1970), 429 F.2d 138, 140.)
He then argues that "when a prosecutor does not give * * * compelling justification for this use of solely hearsay evidence, and when he does not expressly alert the grand jury to the hearsay nature of the evidence or to the existence of readily accessible direct testimony and to its subpoena power in procuring such, he obstructs the grand jury from 'running down every available clue.' " We do not believe, however, the Branzburg is supportive of defendant's position, as it did not, as defendant seems to suggest, hold that an accused's due process rights are violated if the grand jury returns an indictment without considering the testimony of every conceivable witness. Rather, it held that newspaper reporters who possess knowledge of criminal activity are not afforded immunity from grand jury subpoenas by virtue of the First Amendment, and the quotation to which defendant refers was merely an incidental comment the court made in the course of a rather lengthy discussion on the role of the grand jury. Furthermore Branzburg concerned legal questions quite dissimilar from those before us now. First, its focus was on the rights of the reporter witness and is therefore of little guidance in the instant case where an accused's rights are at issue. Second, the court was concerned that critical information would be withheld from grand juries; whereas, in the case at bar, no contention is made that the testimony was insufficient to sustain an indictment. In sum, Branzburg concerns issues so unrelated to those with which we are now faced as to be of no appreciable value.
Our attention is next called to a series of cases of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which defendant offers in support of his argument that the trial court properly dismissed the indictment. In one of these, United States v. Umans (2d Cir. 1966), 368 F.2d 725, Cert. granted (1967), 386 U.S. 940, 87 S.Ct. 975, 17 L.Ed.2d 872, Cert. dismissed as improvidently granted (1967), 389 U.S. 80, 88 S.Ct. 253, 19 L.Ed.2d 255, defendant was indicted for certain income tax violations on the basis of the sole testimony of an Internal Revenue agent who summarized the contents of the affidavits of various witnesses. Conviction eventually resulted and, on appeal, defendant attacked the sufficiency of the testimony upon which the indictment was based. The court of appeals upheld the indictment, but noted:
In the next of the cases cited by defendant, United States v. Leibowitz (2d Cir. 1969), 420 F.2d 39, defendant was indicted for a draft-related violation solely on the basis of hearsay testimony, even though direct evidence was available. His conviction resulted and, while the indictment was upheld on appeal, the court explained:
In the third of these cases, United States v. Estepa (2d Cir. 1972), 471 F.2d 1132, the court ordered an indictment dismissed on the basis of the admonitions set forth in Umans and Leibowitz. In Estepa, defendants were arrested after they sold amounts of heroin and cocaine to undercover police officer Guzman on three separate occasions. At the subsequent grand jury hearing, Guzman did not testify because he was in the field doing other work, although there was admittedly no reason why the presentation could not have been postponed for one or two days so that he might have appeared. The sole testimony before the grand jury was that of officer Twohill, who possessed extremely limited personal knowledge of the incidents. As to the first sale, when Twohill testified that one of the defendants passed a package of heroin to officer Guzman, the prosecutor interjected, "You didn't observe the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
People v. Oliver, 2-05-0216.
...the dismissal of the indictment per its supervisory power and did not find a due process violation. People v. Willie, 69 Ill.App.3d 964, 969, 26 Ill.Dec. 478, 388 N.E.2d 102 (1979). However, if a prosecutor's presentation of deceptive evidence may result in a due process violation (DiVincen......
-
People v. Wolfe
...at a grand jury hearing. An indictment based solely on hearsay testimony is constitutionally acceptable. (People v. Willie (1979), 69 Ill.App.3d 964, 26 Ill.Dec. 478, 388 N.E.2d 102.) Grand jurors may act on tips, rumors, evidence offered by the prosecutor, or their own personal knowledge; ......
- Levy v. Dickstein