Carle v. People

66 N.E. 32, 200 Ill. 494, 1902 Ill. LEXIS 2795
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 16, 1902
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 66 N.E. 32 (Carle v. People) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carle v. People, 66 N.E. 32, 200 Ill. 494, 1902 Ill. LEXIS 2795 (Ill. 1902).

Opinion

Mr. Chief Justice Magruder

delivered the opinion of the court:

First—It is first claimed, on the part of the plaintiff in error, that he killed McKenzie in self-defense, and that the proof clearly shows the case to be one of self-defense. The testimony in reference to this matter was conflicting, and was left to the jury to determine under proper instructions from the court.

On the part of the State, the testimony on the trial below tended to show the following facts:

Plaintiff in error, although he had been at one time the keeper of a saloon on the west side in Chicago, was, at the time of this occurrence, engaged in running a tailor shop at 302 Thirty-first street in the south division of the city. The plaintiff in error came into Kelly’s saloon on the evening of October 10, 1899, about eight o’clock, and inquired' for a package of tailor’s samples. He claimed that these samples had been left at the saloon for him by a customer. Plaintiff in error, later in the evening, between ten and eleven o’clock, returned to the saloon with a woman named Mamie Morrissey, alias Mary Moll-way, alias Mary Young. She had been in the saloon with the plaintiff in error before this time. When he and the woman came into the saloon, they went into one of the wine rooms, sat down at a table, and were engaged in drinking. While they were in the wine room, McKenzie came into the saloon laughing and humming a song. When he saw Carle in the wine room, he said “I can lick all the Carles in Chicago.” The saloon-keeper, fearing that a difficulty was about to occur between Carle and McKenzie, ordered them out of the saloon. Carle left the saloon, and McKenzie was put out. In about half an hour McKenzie returned with the engineer already referred to, and then Carle came into the saloon, or to the door of the saloon, and shot him in the manner already stated. Kelly says that, when he turned around after drawing the beer, he saw Carle going out of the door with a smoking revolver in his hand.' After the shooting the engineer, who was with McKenzie, left the saloon and crossed the street and disappeared, and, so far as this record shows, has never since been heard of. The officers of the law then came and closed the saloon and searched the body. No weapon was found upon McKenzie when his body was so searched. Nothing was found upon his body except a few matches, a comb, a lead-pencil, and a few pieces of paper. At the time the shooting occurred there were in the saloon, besides the saloon-keeper, Kelly, and the deceased and the engineer, a man named Charles Marshall, who was a bar-tender, and two women, named Ellen Mills and Tillie Martell, who were in one of the wine rooms. When the plaintiff in error visited the saloon the second time about half-past ten or eleven o’clock with the woman called Mary Morrissey, the latter left the saloon before Carle did, and he was alone in the saloon when McKenzie came in laughing and humming a song. A trunk-maker, named Joseph McNamara, was on the corner of Lake and Clark streets waiting for a car, standing about ten or twelve feet from the saloon, which was lighted. McNamara says, that he saw a man enter the saloon, and heard a shot fired immediately; that the man came from the east; that, just as the shot was fired, the man came out again “so quick I couldn’t hardly tell it.” He also says, “It seemed he just no more than got in when the shot was fired, and out again.” This man was the plaintiff in- error. McNamara did not know either McKenzie or Carle, or any one connected with the saloon. He says that he went at once to the entrance of the saloon, and saw that McKenzie was shot; that the door was open, and he looked in, and saw the man just as he dropped down on the floor, and saw the bar-tender put a towel around his neck; that he then went to an officer, and told the officer, and that then they all rushed into the saloon; that there were two officers, standing on the north-west corner and waiting for a car.

On the part of the defense, testimony was introduced with a view of showing, and tending to show, that, prior to the shooting, there had been some difficulty between McKenzie and Carle, and that the former had threatened to shoot the latter. Mary Mollway, or Morrissey, who had kept rooms at 25 North State street, and from whom, at different times, both McKenzie and Carle had rented rooms, stated that, about the first of September, Carle had come to her house, and had there been attacked by McKenzie and another man, and thrown over the bannisters and injured. She also appears to have been in the company of McKenzie on the evening of October 10, and went over to the north side with him, before she met plaintiff in error and went into Kelly’s saloon with the latter. The testimony of Mary Mollway, and of Marshall, and of the plaintiff in error himself, tends to show that, at the second visit of Carle to the saloon that evening, when the deceased said “I can lick all the Carles in Chicago,” McKenzie was armed and advanced towards Carle with a revolver. This testimony, however, is contradicted by the testimony of the State. Mary Mollway did not witness what'took place at this time, inasmuch as she left the saloon before Carle did, but she claims that she went up the steps of the elevated railroad in front of the saloon, and from there saw something of what took place in the saloon. She says that the revolver, which McKenzie had at that time, was taken from him, and handed to a man by the name of Egan. Egan, however, was placed upon the stand, and denied that any revolver was handed to him. Several witnesses were produced, who swore that the reputation of the plaintiff in error for truth and veracity was bad, and that they would not believe him upon oath; and one of these witnesses swears that plaintiff in error had at one time shot at him. One of the witnesses in behalf of the defense was shown to have been convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary in 1883. The parties, testifying in the case, were for the most part frequenters of the saloon in question, and some of them, both men and women, were criminal and abandoned characters. The jury heard their testimony, and it was for them to determine whether the witnesses for the State or the witnesses for the defense were worthy of belief. After plaintiff in error left the saloon when he visited it in company with the woman, Mary Mollway, he came back in half an hour, armed with a revolver, and entered the saloon, and shot the deceased, and killed him. Whether, as he claims and as his evidence tends to show, he went there merely for the purpose of getting a package of tailor’s samples which had been left there, and because he had been informed that McKenzie had left the saloon, or whether he returned to the saloon for the express purpose of killing the deceased, was a matter to be decided by the jury from all the testimony and the circumstances, developed by the evidence. It is not denied that the court gave to the jury clear and full instructions upon the subject of self-defense, and defining what constituted self-defense. Evidently they believed the witnesses of the State, tending to show that the killing was murder, and not in self-defense. The verdict is not so far contrary to the weight of the evidence, as to induce us to set it aside upon that ground.

Second—It is claimed, on the part of the plaintiff in error, that the court gave three instructions to the jury in behalf of the State upon the subject of reasonable doubt, which were erroneous. It is not necessary to set out these instructions in full in this opinion.

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Bluebook (online)
66 N.E. 32, 200 Ill. 494, 1902 Ill. LEXIS 2795, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carle-v-people-ill-1902.