People v. Wright
| Decision Date | 18 March 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 37641,37641 |
| Citation | 198 N.E.2d 316,30 Ill.2d 519 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Louis WRIGHT, Plaintiff in Error. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Frederic F. Brace, Jr., Chicago, for plaintiff in error.
William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and Daniel P. Ward, State's Atty., Chicago for defendant in error.
In 1957 the defendant, Louis Wright, was indicted by the grand jury of the criminal court of Cook County for two crimes of rape and two crimes of burglary. He was tried by the court without a jury and found guilty on each indictment. The four judgments of conviction were reviewed by this court and we reversed all of the judgments and remanded the causes for new trials on the ground that the State had failed to produce all of the witnesses to alleged confessions made by the defendant. (People v. Wright, 24 Ill.2d 88, 180 N.E.2d 689.) In 1962 the defendant was tried by jury on one of the indictments, charging him with the rape of Virginia Olson. He was found guilty and sentenced by the court to a term of 60 years imprisonment. A writ of error has been issued to review this judgment.
Although the defendant does not argue that the evidence was insufficient, we find it necessary to briefly summarize the testimony. Mrs. Olson testified that she was awakened at about 3:00 A.M. on March 18, 1957, by a man who was standing over her bed with a sharp object pressing her chest. He told her that he would kill her if she screamed and proceeded to rape her. He was only in the room for two or three minutes and fled when he heard a noise from the back of the house. Mrs. Olson ran downstairs, awakened her brother-in-law, and told him she had been raped. She described the room as dark and the window shade was half-way down. The only light came from a street light about 10 feet from the house and this light fell on the man's back and not on his face. She also stated that her wedding ring and engagement ring, which she had placed on her dresser, had been stolen. Between March 18 and March 22 she went to three or four police line-ups but was unable to identify anyone. On March 22 she again attended a police line-up where she identified the defendant, but she said that she was unable to identify the defendant until she heard his voice. On cross-examination, Mrs. Olson said that she had given a signed statement to two police officers at the Englewood police station, but she did not know their names. Defense counsel asked the prosecutor whether they had that statement and one of the prosecutors replied that he had made a search of the entire police department and was unable to locate the statement. The inability of the prosecution to produce this statement, and other statements, is one of the grounds relied upon for reversal and will be more fully discussed later. On further cross-examination, Mrs. Olson said at one time that she didn't remember what she had told the police immediately following the crime, and at another time said that she had told the police that she didn't know if she would be able to identify the defendant.
Police officer Cassidy testified that he obtained from a pawn shop a wedding ring and an engagement ring which were identified by Mrs. Olson as the ones stolen from her room. The pawn broker testified that the rights had been pawned by Herbert Henson while accompanied by the defendant.
Police officer Barrett testified that on March 22, at about 2:20 A.M. he followed a car in which two men were riding. When the car stopped, the officer found Herbert Henson hiding in the car and the officer searched the vicinity, looking for the other occupant. He saw the defendant crouched by a door on the second floor of an apartment building. When Barrett shouted to the defendant, the defendant first came down about four steps and then ran back upstairs and broke through a door. The officer heard a lot of people screaming and felt it would not be safe to pursue the defendant into the apartment because some of the tenants might get hurt. The officer ran outside to the rear of the apartment building in time to see the defendant dive through a closed window and land at the officer's feet. The officer told the defendant he was under arrest and the defendant begged him not to shoot and promised that he would not run. However, the defendant did flee from the officer and after firing two shots at the defendant, the officer lost him. A short time later other police officers converged on the scene and searched the vicinity. At about 3:30 A.M. officer Barrett and several other officers observed the defendant hiding on a second floor porch. The officers ordered him to come down and after first attempting to enter an apartment, the defendant came down and was placed under arrest.
For the defense the defendant testified that he was not in Mrs. Olson's room and did not rape her. On cross-examination he stated that he was home in bed at the time, and denied that he ever went to the pawn shop, or that he gave any rings to his half-brother Herbert Henson. He said he obtained two rings from a man named Joseph and put them in his dresser drawer. He did not see them again until the police recovered them from the pawn shop.
A member of the Chicago Bureau of Electricity testified that the street lights in the vicinity of Mrs. Olson's home had been installed prior to September, 1955, and that their location had not been changed since that date. Another defense witness measured the distance between Mrs. Olson's bedroom window and the nearest street light and found the light was 90 feet north of the window.
In rebuttal the prosecutor read a portion of the defendant's testimony at the former trial in which he stated that he had received the rings on March 18 and had given them to Henson to sell, and that he had gone with Henson to the pawn shop when he had sold the rings.
The defendant argues that proof of the circumstances surrounding the defendant's arrest improperly brought before the jury prejudicial evidence of other crimes. In our opinion this contention cannot be sustained. It is well established that the State may prove that a defendant resisted arrest or fled from arrest, since evidence of flight is competent as tending to show guilt of the crime charged in the indictment. In People v. Anderson, 17 Ill.2d 422, 161 N.E.2d 835, the crime occurred on October 1 and we held that it was proper to show the defendant's resistance to arrest on October 8 and to show that the defendant shot a police officer while resisting arrest. In People v. Davis, 14 Ill.2d 196, 151 N.E.2d 308, the crimes occurred in March and April and it was held that no error was committed in providing that the defendant resisted arrest in June. The arrest in the present case occurred four days after the crime and in our opinion it was not error to show that the defendant fled when he was ordered to surrender. The fact that this evidence also brought out that the defendant broke through the door of an apartment does not render the evidence improper.
The defendant also contends that the prosecutor's argument to the jury was so prejudicial as to require a reversal of the conviction. In particular, the defendant contends that the prosecutor improperly dwelt upon the circumstances of the defendant's arrest and asked the jury to convict the defendant because of his conduct at that time. The abstract shows that in several of the instances of which complaint is now made, no objection was made at the time of the argument. We have reviewed the entire argument and find that the prosecutor argued that the principal issue in the case was identification and that because criminals operated in the dark it was sometimes difficult to obtain identification. The prosecutor argued that the jury could properly consider the fact that the defendant fled from arrest four days after the crime as bearing upon his guilt and that the jury could also consider that the defendant was in the company of Henson when Henson pawned the rings stolen from Mrs. Olson's apartment. The prosecutor argued that when the defendant fled from arrest he committed another burglary, apparently referring to the breaking and entering of the apartment. Defense counsel objected to the argument and the court sustained the objection and noted that there was no evidence of any burglary. The prosecutor argued that many criminals wear masks to prevent identification. Counsel objected on the ground that there was no evidence of masks in the case and the court sustained the objection and advised the jury to disregard any reference to masks. A review of the prosecutor's argument satisfies us that it did not exceed the bounds of fair argument except in the two instances where the trial court promptly sustained defendant's objections. We find nothing in the argument sufficient to require reversal.
The defendant also contends that the jury should have been permitted to fix the punishment as well as to determine his guilt. His argument is that under the law in effect at the time the crime was committed, the jury fixed the punishment, and that the subsequent change brought about by the Criminal Code, under which the court fixes the punishment, was not applicable to him. We find no need for extended discussion of this point. In People v. Johnson, 23 Ill.2d 465, 178 N.E.2d 878, we held that in cases where the crime occurred before the effective date of the new Criminal Code, and where the trial is conducted after that date, the defendant could properly be sentenced by the court instead of the jury. In our opinion the sentence was properly fixed by the court rather than by the jury. People v. Mackey, Ill., 195 N.E.2d 636.
The final contention advanced by the defendant is that he was denied a...
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...counsel was given an opportunity to inspect his file, and, apparently, no statement was found. Defendant now argues that People v. Wright (1964), 30 Ill.2d 519 , appeal dismissed and cert. denied (1964), 379 U.S. 11, 13 L.Ed.2d 24, 85 S.Ct. 133, requires the trial court to conduct, on its o......
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