People v. Carroll

365 N.E.2d 1352, 50 Ill. App. 3d 946, 8 Ill. Dec. 890, 1977 Ill. App. LEXIS 3043
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided July 25, 1977·No. 76-290·Published·Cited by 8 cases

Opinion

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE RECHENMACHER

delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant was charged with armed robbery, convicted in a jury trial and sentenced to not less than 5 nor more than 10 years in the penitentiary.

He appeals on the following grounds: (1) that he was convicted on the basis of an involuntary confession; (2) that his case was prejudiced by improper argument by the prosecutor, and (3) that his identification was made under suggestive circumstances.

The West End Tap, a tavern, was robbed at gun point on March 15, 1975. As a result of a police investigation one of the four men who participated in the robbery was identified and questioned. He named the defendant as one of the robbers and the defendant was arrested on June 5, 1975, and held for questioning.

Detective Gray, who along with Detective Cronk, interviewed the defendant subsequent to his arrest on June 5, testified that after he was read his rights, defendant claimed he was in the hospital at the time of the robbery. Upon calling the hospital, the detectives discovered defendant had been admitted one week after the robbery occurred. Detective Gray admitted during cross-examination that he told the defendant that he was going to be charged with armed robbery and tiiat the police had some leeway with the State’s Attorney’s office in recommending what kind of bond would be set and tiiat, if he wanted to cooperate, “there was no reason why we couldn’t recommend a low bond.” Gray further testified that in response to an inquiry from defendant he told him that the bond in an armed robbery case could be “somewhere between *10,000 and *100,000.” The defendant testified this conversation took place on the day of his arrest, tiiat he was not threatened physically and he did not at that time ask to be allowed to call an attorney.

The defendant’s testimony was that he had been told that his bond had been set at *20,000 but “later on after I had talked to them they came back saying my bond had been raised to *50,000.”

The defendant, however, did not give Detective Gray a statement and he was placed in a cell overnight. The following morning the defendant was given his “Miranda” rights and was questioned by two different detectives, Otwell and Donnelli. At that time the defendant gave the statement which is one of die bases of appeal here. Otwell and Donnelli testified that there was no mention of the defendant’s bond when they questioned him and tiiat he gave diem a statement without any reference to the bond limits. The defendant maintained, however, that the details of die statement were not supplied by him but were suggested to him by the detectives and he merely acquiesced in the statement of facts, as they prepared it. Asked by defense counsel on direct examination why he had signed the statement if it did not represent his own knowledge of the facts, the defendant said he had come to die conclusion that the only way he could be released was to sign a statement for the police and that he acquiesced in the statement prepared by the police because he “wanted to get out,” and thought he would be in jail until he “cooperated.” He testified that before he gave die statement Detective Donnelli had told him that if the defendant talked to him he could probably get his charge reduced and his bond lowered. Both detectives positively denied such conversation. Defense counsel, preliminary to trial, moved to suppress the inculpatory statement on the ground it was not a voluntary statement in that it was the result of coercion by the police, based on the admission by Detective Gray that he had told die defendant tiiat if the defendant cooperated with the police, the police might be able to get his bond reduced. The trial court denied this motion.

We do not consider Detective Gray’s remarks on the first day of questioning concerning the bond limits to have been coercive to the extent that the defendant, the next day, was induced to sign a detailed statement as to his participation in a robbery which he did not commit. The defendant could hardly have supposed that he would be released from his arrest if he confessed to the crime and, if he was innocent, we think he would have to suffer a more persuasive kind of coercion than that testified to in order to induce a false confession. Moreover, while the defendant testified the police put words into his mouth in the statement he signed, this was as to the details and whether he confirmed some false or inaccurate details or not, there was not shown to have been sufficient pressure to make an innocent man sign a confession of guilt. We believe, as did the trial judge, that die defendant’s confession was not rendered involuntary by the police statements in question on the previous day, and that the statement made on the following day, after the passage of a significant period of time, and after being given a fresh set of Miranda warnings, was legally a voluntary confession. People v. Eason (1976), 44 Ill. App. 3d 308, 314.

A more difficult question is raised by the defendant’s contention that he was greatly prejudiced by a courtroom identification having no validity because it had no independent source. The difficulty with the prosecution of the defendant was that none of the tavern patrons who were present at the robbery could identify any of the robbers and the defendant had never been identified in a lineup. At the trial the defendant took the stand and said he was elsewhere at the time of the robbery and produced a witness — a girl friend — who so testified. The State called in rebuttal— ostensibly to place the defendant at the scene — Mrs. Grebas who was a patron of the tavern and witnessed the robbery. She testified she did not look too closely at the robbers but noticed the defendant’s general appearance and clothing. She was then asked if any of the robbers was in the courtroom. Mrs. Grebas asked to have the defendant stand up. Over objections by defense counsel the court ordered the defendant to stand up and Mrs. Grebas then said “he looks familiar.” On cross-examination she said that she was not identifying him because he happened to be sitting in the witness chair, that she had seen him “at the door.” Further questioning by defense counsel brought out that the “door” she was referring to was the courtroom door and that she had looked through the courtroom door while she was waiting in the hall to testify, witnesses having been excluded from the courtroom. This had occurred just before she went on the stand to testify. While the witness’s identification was not positive, she did not retract it under cross-examination. She admitted she had once picked out a photo of another person as resembling the robber in question but the result of her cross-examination was a more positive identification of the defendant as one of the robbers.

The impropriety of the witness’s conduct in looking through the courtroom door while the defendant was on the stand is obvious. Also obvious is the suggestiveness of the circumstances for identification purposes. On the other hand, the trial judge’s remarks at the post-trial motion covering this point as grounds for a new trial, clearly indicate he was completely unaware that this excluded witness had looked in while tlie defendant was on the stand, until she so stated herself. No objection was made to her identification on this ground, nor was there a motion for a mistrial.

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People v. Carroll, 365 N.E.2d 1352, 50 Ill. App. 3d 946, 8 Ill. Dec. 890, 1977 Ill. App. LEXIS 3043 (Ill. Ct. App. 1977).

365 N.E.2d 1352 (People v. Carroll) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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