People v. Camel

295 N.E.2d 270, 10 Ill. App. 3d 1022, 1973 Ill. App. LEXIS 2765
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedApril 12, 1973
Docket11552
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 295 N.E.2d 270 (People v. Camel) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Camel, 295 N.E.2d 270, 10 Ill. App. 3d 1022, 1973 Ill. App. LEXIS 2765 (Ill. Ct. App. 1973).

Opinion

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE CRAVEN

delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant was convicted in a bench trial of rape and aggravated kidnapping. He was sentenced to a term of not less than 10 nor more than 25 years in the Illinois State Penitentiary, the sentences to run concurrently. Upon this appeal, he asserts that the trial court committed error in denying discovery of certain evidence before trial; that he . was denied his right to counsel at the preliminary hearing; and that the in-court identification was based upon unduly suggestive show-up or photographic identification; and that the trial court prohibited certain offers of proof. Other evidentiary rulings are also assigned as error.

On March 17, 1970, Joanne Hinton, then age 16, was walking from her home to Champaign Central High School in Champaign, Illinois. As was her usual custom, she was following a route that would take her by way of the home of a girl friend with whom she walked to school. Joanne had left her home around 8:00 o’clock in the morning of the date in question.

A man walking in the same direction as Miss Hinton passed her, then stopped and turned around and inquired of her as to the location of the university. Miss Hinton pointed in the general direction of the university. The man had a scarf on that covered the lower portion of his face up to about the middle of his nose.

Miss Hinton crossed the street to avoid further encounter with the man; however, he followed her and again asked her the location of the university. The conversation at that point was described by Miss Hinton in her testimony as follows:

“Where’s the university?
You have a long ways to go.
I have a gun, and I don’t want to hurt you. All I want is your money.
You can have it.
I don’t want to take it here. Come with me if you don’t want to get hurt.”

The man placed a knife at her back and they walked to a car described as “greenish-blue”. She got in and sat on the passenger side. She was told to keep her head down close to her knees. The man then placed a blindfold over her eyes. When she began to cry, he placed the knife at her throat and ordered her to stop crying. After driving for what was described as a few minutes, the car was stopped and the girl’s hands were tied behind her back. The man ordered the girl to take off her underpants but she was unable to do so because her hands were tied. He then removed the underpants himself, started to drive again, and ordered the girl to get into the back seat of the car. Ultimately, she got into the back seat of the car; the man stopped the car, climbed into the back seat, and raped the girl. She stated that she did not attempt to fight him because she was scared she would be hurt.

Miss Hinton was then driven by the man to Westside Park in Champaign, was told to face the opposite direction of the car, and not to look back until the car was gone. She testified that she did not look back, but instead ran to the high school. She there made an immediate complaint to the dean of girls as to the preceding events. She arrived at the high school around 9:00 A.M. Miss Hinton was thereafter taken by her mother to a Doctor Kelso for purposes of examination.

Later that same morning, Miss Hinton talked to officers of the Champaign Police Department, gave a statement to officer Voss, and in the statement gave a physical description of her assailant as around 5 feet 8 inches tall, of small build, with dark brown hair combed over his forehead, having small hazel eyes, of medium voice, and wearing a brown corduroy jacket of three-quarter length. His age was described as between 21 and 22 years.

Also, on the day of the offense, the police asked Miss Hinton to view certain prisoners on a closed-circuit television at the police department. She did so, but did not identify any of the persons viewed as her attacker. About a month later, the prosecutrix looked at a large number of photographs at the police station but did not identify her attacker as being among the photographs shown to her. In her testimony, she stated that she did not see the defendant on the closed-circuit television, nor recall seeing photographs of him at the time of the photographic viewing.

On May 28, 1970, Miss Hinton and her father were present at a preliminary hearing. She and her father were unaware that the defendant was to be present and unaware that they were there for purposes of any identification. At the time of that hearing, Miss Hinton made a positive identification of the defendant, Steven Arthur Camel, as her attacker.

Joyce Parlchill and her son, Bill, then age 13, were called as witnesses for the prosecution. The substance of their testimony was that Mrs. Parkhill was driving the son to school at around 8:00 o’clock in the morning on March 17, 1970. They saw a car stopped at an intersection near John Street in Champaign, Illinois. As they pulled alongside the stopped car they saw a young man in the car with a muffler around the lower part of his face. Mrs. Parkhill, a portrait artist, described the facial characteristics and described the car as a blue-green vehicle. Bill Park-hill likewise described the facial characteristics of the man with the muffller and also indicated that he saw a girl crouched down in tire passenger side of the front seat of the car. She was wearing a black and white hat and he testified that the hat he saw looked like the hat worn by Joanne Hinton on the day she was kidnapped. Mrs. Parlchill and Bill were shown five photographs. Bill Parkhill identified a photograph of the defendant as his second most likely choice as a picture of the man he saw that morning. These photographs are in evidence. Mrs. Parkhill was unable to identify the defendant. At the time of trial, Bill Parkhill made a courtroom identification of the defendant Camel as the one who had been in the car on the morning in question. Upon cross examination, he conceded that he was not absolutely one hundred per cent certain of his identification.

Dr. Kelso, the family physician to whom Miss Hinton was taken for examination, testified that vaginal smears taken from Miss Hinton indicated the presence of sperm. He further testified that on the occasion of his examination of Miss Hinton she was extremely upset and nervous and that she related to him that she had been raped.

Victoria Booth, defendant’s girl friend, testified as an alibi witness to the effect that the defendant spent the night of March 16, 1970 in her apartment and that he did not leave her apartment on the morning of March 17 until after 8:30 A.M. and that he did not use her automobile described as a forest green automobile.

Other evidentiary matter so far as is relevant to the decision in this case will be discussed in connection with the particular issue to which it has application.

The defendant sought, and for the most part obtained, extensive pretrial discovery.

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Bluebook (online)
295 N.E.2d 270, 10 Ill. App. 3d 1022, 1973 Ill. App. LEXIS 2765, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-camel-illappct-1973.