People v. Anderson

87 N.E. 917, 239 Ill. 168
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 19, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 87 N.E. 917 (People v. Anderson) 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
People v. Anderson, 87 N.E. 917, 239 Ill. 168 (Ill. 1909).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Scott

delivered the opinion of the court:

Anderson denied that he signed the written statement above set out. When it was ready to be signed, according to the evidence for the prosecution, the police sent out for persons not connected with the police department to witness Anderson’s signature, and brought in W. L. Norman-dine, a deputy sheriff serving in the, municipal court, and a man by the name of Campbell. The latter was not called as a witness and it appears that he was out of the State at the time the case was tried. Normandine was and testified that he was acquainted with Anderson and saw him in the police station on the occasion in question; that after he reached there he was given the statement and read it over; that Fitzgerald, the police officer who reduced the statement to writing, then asked Anderson to read it. Anderson said, “No; you read it.” Fitzgerald then read it aloud and asked Anderson if it was all right. Anderson answered “yes; that he made no objection to anything that was read and that it was his statement.” Normandine testified that, in response to questions asked by him at the time, Anderson said that he did not make the statement under any coercion; that he made it of his own free will; that he had not been promised immunity; that he had not been abused or treated unkindly by the officers at the station and that he made the statement because he wanted to. On cross-examination Normandine said that he asked these questions of Anderson because he thought probably the police “abused persons like that when they wanted a confession from them;” that Anderson, at the time, “was very cool and collected and there did not seem to be anything bothering him at all.”

In addition to that, Fitzgerald, Mulhearn," McSwiggen and filealy, police officers, testified in reference to the making and signing of this statement. It appears from their testimony that the statement was freely and voluntarily made and signed, without any promise of leniency on account thereof. Normandine, Campbell and two police officers signed as witnesses to Anderson’s signature. Anderson also denied the essential parts of the statement which he is said to have made to Day. Lemke swears positively that Anderson fired the fatal shot. Nothing else is consistent with the testimony of Davis and Dennin, and from Anderson’s statements, written and oral, it appears that this must be so. It is true that he says by his statements that he does not know whether the first shot he heard was from the revolver which he had in his hand, but McCagg did not then have a revolver in his possession. If the first shot which he heard did not come from the revolver which he had in his hand it could only have come from Callaghan’s revolver, and there is not the slightest indication in the case that the wound from which Callaghan died was self-inflicted. It necessarily follows that the shot which killed Callaghan was one of the shots which. Anderson fired. If Callaghan swung McCagg around in front of him for the purpose of using him as a shield when Anderson was firing, as Dennin testified, the result of this maneuver was to place McCagg with his back toward Anderson and to leave Callaghan with his face toward Anderson. In the course of this movement, if it was made, Callaghan was in a position to receive from Anderson’s revolver the shot in his abdomen and McCagg was in a position to receive from the same weapon the wound in his back.- Anderson’s statement that a “little fellow” came running down the avenue from the north, firing at the three men on the corner, and that he (Anderson) picked up the/revolver for the purpose of firing toward the little fellow., is manifestly a pure invention, made necessary on the trialr/for the purpose of explaining how Anderson came to have possession of the revolver which the polled had already found at the place at which Anderson had told them he had hidden it. According to Anderson’s testimony on the trial there was no purpose whatever in picking up the revolver and firing it except to repel the attack of the man who came from the north. No other of several persons who were eye-witnesses to - the shooting saw the “little fellow” shooting in Hoyne avenue. To us it is clear and certain, upon consideration of competent evidence offered against Anderson and upon consideration of testimony offered in his favor, that he (Anderson) fired the shot at Callaghan which killed the .latter, under circumstances which make the act of Anderson murder.

It is complained that the court erred in refusing to grant Anderson a separate trial. The only motion for a separate trial shown by the bill of exceptions is one made after the jury were sworn. It does not appear that it was based on any ground not known to plaintiff in error when the jury were called into the box. It is certain that in the absence of a showing that something had come to Anderson’s knowledge after the jury were sworn which afforded a basis for a separate trial, the motion was properly overruled on the ground that it came too late. (Hullinger v. State, 25 Ohio St. 441; State v. Mason, 19 Wash. 94; Nichols v. Territory, 3 Okla. 622; State v. McLane, 15 Nev. 345.) What the rights of Anderson would have been had it appeared that the motion was based on such newly acquired information is not for our determination.

While Dennin and Lemke were confined at the police station each made a written statement, which, in substance, was the same as the testimony of Lemke given on the trial and recited in the foregoing statement of facts, except that each of such statements made at the police station showed more clearly that when the four men were upon the street after leaving the room they were acting in concert for the purpose of obtaining money by highway robbery. These were admitted in evidence, and it is urged that this was error. Each of those statements tended to show guilt, as charged in the indictment, on the part of the man who made it, and both of the men who made the statements were on trial when the statements were offered. It is, of course, true that one of several co-defendants charged with a crime cannot make a statement exonerating himself and fastening the crime upon another co-defendant, and thereby make the statement admissible on the theory that it is a confession of the defendant making it. No man can confess for any one but himself. As above indicated, however, each statement contained admissions of fact which the jury might rightfully regard as tending to show the guilt of the man making the statement. If there was in either statement anything the effect of which was to indicate the guilt of Anderson without tending to show the guilt of the man making the statement, that part of the statement was not properly admissible in this case where Anderson was on trial. There is no part of either statement which could have been excluded on that theory. Each of the written recitals was properly admitted in evidence as against the man making it.

Dennin and Lemke both testified at the coroner’s inquest upon the body of Callaghan. The prosecution in this case proved what each said there, by taking the testimony of the deputy coroner who conducted the inquest and of a stenographer who took the testimony there. The prosecutor by the usual method showed this evidence to be within the rule announced in Lyons v. People, 137 Ill. 602, and that being so, it was proper to prove against either' of the two' men, Dennin and Lemke, what he had said before the coroner. Objection was interposed as to the manner in which proof was made in the criminal court of the statements which had been made before the coroner.

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Bluebook (online)
87 N.E. 917, 239 Ill. 168, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-anderson-ill-1909.