People of the United States Ex Rel. John J. Rooney v. Vernon G. Housewright, Warden, Vienna Branch, Illinois Department of Corrections

568 F.2d 516, 1977 U.S. App. LEXIS 5766
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedDecember 5, 1977
Docket76-2138
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 568 F.2d 516 (People of the United States Ex Rel. John J. Rooney v. Vernon G. Housewright, Warden, Vienna Branch, Illinois Department of Corrections) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People of the United States Ex Rel. John J. Rooney v. Vernon G. Housewright, Warden, Vienna Branch, Illinois Department of Corrections, 568 F.2d 516, 1977 U.S. App. LEXIS 5766 (7th Cir. 1977).

Opinions

In this review of the denial of a petition for habeas corpus, we affirm and adopt the Memorandum and Order of Judge Foreman entered on August 19, 1976, to which we add some additional factual and legal comments.1

There is little disagreement about the basic facts which may be briefly summarized.

Late on the night of January 21,1966, the petitioner, Rooney, shot and killed George Harvill in St. Clair County, Illinois, outside the home of Anita Sarro, the former wife of the decedent but then more recently the girl friend of petitioner. After stopping at a tavern, petitioner had driven Mrs. Sarro home and parked in front. Harvill ran out the front door of Mrs. Sarro’s home and up to petitioner’s car, appeared to check the license number and yelled he would kill them both. Mrs. Sarro testified she then gave petitioner a .45 caliber pistol, previously given her by petitioner, which she carried in her purse. Mrs. Sarro then got out of the car and went into her house to call the police as petitioner instructed her to do. Harvill made no move to harm her, but retreated from the car to a front corner of her house away from her front door which was closer to the other front corner of the double house. Petitioner at the same time got out of his car and fired a shot at Harvill who continued to run to and around the back of the house while petitioner fired a couple more shots in the air, as he explained, to keep Harvill running. Petitioner then started for Mrs. Sarro’s front door, changed his mind, and cut back toward the street so that he could see around the other side of the house. Petitioner saw Harvill crouched along side the house and immediately ran towards Harvill, firing the final shots. Harvill fell to the ground and died almost at once from the gunshot wounds. Harvill had no weapon. Petitioner waited for the police to arrive.

In the state court trial, petitioner was found guilty by a jury of murder and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 50 nor more than 99 years.2 Petitioner sought relief, both by direct appeal and by post-conviction appeal, but to no avail. Our own review of the record reveals no error of constitutional proportions.

We will consider the issues insofar as they are raised in this appeal in the same order as considered in the trial court’s memorandum.

I.

The first issue involves an improper inquiry made by the state during direct examination of the sheriff concerning the petitioner’s refusal to respond at the time of his arrest to some vague questions from the sheriff. The improper questions and answers could have had no effect on the jury since there was already undisputed evidence in the record that the petitioner had waited for the police to arrive at the scene, admitted to them that he had shot Harvill who was unarmed, and then handed over the gun to the officers. No emphasis was placed on any lack of additional answers from petitioner during the trial. No mention of it was made in final arguments. We concur in the view expressed by the reviewing court in the post-conviction hearing, People v. Rooney, 16 Ill.App.3d 901, 307 N.E.2d 216, 219:

Actually, defendant waited for the police at the scene of the shooting, handed over his gun to the police, announced that he had shot a man, and volunteered that he had fired his gun six times. The only [519]*519evidence submitted to the jury relative to the shooting itself was that of the defendant. Upon his story alone he stood convicted, and the two questions and answers neither added to nor subtracted from the overwhelming evidence of his guilt, nor did they in any way tend to reasonably affect his trial. Under such circumstances we find the error to have been harmless.

In reviewing this record we find the evidence of guilt to be overwhelming. The error was completely harmless. Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).

II.

The trial court foreclosed petitioner’s efforts to offer evidence of Harvill’s bad reputation and petitioner’s knowledge of that reputation. The trial court held that such evidence was not admissible in the absence of some evidence that Harvill at the time of the shooting appeared to engage in some act of aggression against petitioner or Mrs. Sarro other than the verbal threat which he had no apparent means of carrying out and made no effort to do so. On direct appeal of petitioner’s conviction, the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District, 91 111. App.2d 46, 233 N.E.2d 440 (1968), in an abstract opinion stated the issue succinctly: “Evidence of reputation of deceased for violent and dangerous disposition is not admissible until evidence is adduced from which it may be inferred that use of unlawful force was imminent, or that defendant reasonably believed that his use of force was necessary to prevent’ imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another.”

To understand the trial court’s ruling, affirmed on appeal, a closer look at the evidence is needed. Since the petitioner and Mrs. Sarro were the only surviving eye witnesses, their own testimony as to the events was accepted. It is undisputed that the decedent had no gun, did not pretend to have one, and made no threatening gestures of any kind. It is also undisputed that as petitioner started to get out of his car, the .45 caliber gun in hand, the decedent retreated at a run toward a corner of Mrs. Sarro’s house, and then continued at a run to the back of the house. By the petitioner’s own testimony, at this time he fired his first shot at the fleeing defendant, which was likely the shot that hit the decedent in the arm; and petitioner fired several more shots to keep Harvill running. Petitioner testified that he feared at the time he might be “caught in the middle” by a possible friend of Harvill’s, if such a friend might be in a car petitioner said was parked across the street. The petitioner’s actions, however, evidenced no concern for that possibility. Petitioner did not testify that he saw anyone in the car. Nothing materialized as to another car. After Harvill had run to the back of the house, petitioner started to enter the front door of Mrs. Sarro’s home, then changed his mind, went back into the yard angling toward the street for a look around the other side of the house to see if Harvill had gone around the back of the house to the other side. Petitioner saw Harvill toward the back side of the house. According to petitioner, Harvill “took about one step, I guess, when I came around.” Again, there is no claim that Harvill did anything threatening, but according to petitioner’s own account, as soon as he saw Harvill at the back corner of the house petitioner “started running at him” firing as he charged at Harvill. Harvill was hit two more times, in the neck and back, and spun to the ground. Petitioner testified that he knew he had at least wounded Harvill. Even so, petitioner went on to testify that he kept running at Harvill in order to hit him with the pistol, all the cartridges having been expended, since he did not know how badly Harvill had been wounded. Harvill died on the spot.

In spite of the attempts in petitioner’s brief to characterize the events as told by petitioner so as to justify the killing, we see them differently.

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Bluebook (online)
568 F.2d 516, 1977 U.S. App. LEXIS 5766, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-of-the-united-states-ex-rel-john-j-rooney-v-vernon-g-ca7-1977.