People v. Hill

212 N.E.2d 259, 64 Ill. App. 2d 185, 1965 Ill. App. LEXIS 1113
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided October 19, 1965·No. Gen. 50,175·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

MR. PRESIDING JUSTICE BURKE

delivered the opinion of the court.

Two indictments were returned, one charging Willie Lee Hill with assault with attempt to commit rape and another with assault with attempt to commit murder. On the motion of defendant, the indictments were consolidated for trial. He pleaded not guilty. A trial without a jury resulted in a finding of guilty on each charge and a judgment and sentence in each case that he serve a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 12 years in the penitentiary, the sentences to run concurrently. He appeals. Florine Lamar testified that on the morning of September 8, 1961, she resided at 6146 South Kenwood, apartment 512, Chicago, Illinois. She was lying across her bed wearing only a blouse and panties. At approximately 8:00 a. m., she awoke, turned on the radio and opened the main door to her apartment, keeping the shutter door locked and closed, and returned to bed. She looked up and saw the defendant on his hands and knees in her room. She screamed and cried out. He knocked her off the b.ed and told her to keep quiet. He dragged her to the couch, one hand in her back and the other in her hair and he tore her panties. She continued to resist and defendant kept knocking her head down and hitting her eyes and tried to put his penis into her vagina. He placed a knife around her neck. Accidently she slipped, he pulled her up and went toward the door. Just before he reached the door Carol Pittman, a tenant from across the hall, called out (on hearing the screams, crying and the sounds of falling furniture) Miss Lamar’s name. The defendant closed the door with one hand and began to strike the victim, Miss Lamar. He knocked her toward a window. He then let her drop and she was able to reach her purse where she had a loaded revolver. She pointed the revolver at him. The defendant reached for a chair. She fired and he struck her with the chair three times until she dropped the revolver. He then picked up the revolver, put it in his pocket and left the apartment. Miss Lamar was bleeding, her eyes were swollen and there were scratches on her face, neck and legs. She was hospitalized for two and one-half days. She identified the assailant as Willie Lee Hill, the defendant.

Miss Carol Pittman, a neighbor who resided in the apartment across the hall from the apartment of Miss Lamar, in the same building, testified that some time after midnight of September 8, 1961, she heard a scream coming from Miss Lamar’s apartment. Miss Lamar hollered “help me, help me, somebody’s trying to rapé me.” Miss Pittman tried to open the shuttered door but the defendant slammed the main door. She testified that she knew the defendant, and recognized his voice, as the voice saying “shut up bitch.” “Yes, I’ll kill a bitch like you,” and one time saw him standing in the apartment. She heard Miss Lamar crying and saying “If I do it, will you kill me ?” Then Miss Pittman saw defendant come out of Miss Lamar’s apartment. Before the defendant came out of the apartment, witness Pittman heard sounds as if the apartment was being wrecked and she (Miss Pittman) had sent her boyfriend Sylvester outside the building to get the police. Sylvester Robinson, Miss Carol Pittman’s boyfriend and cotenant and also a friend of the defendant, testified that he had been with Willie Lee Hill earlier in the evening in question and that defendant questioned- him concerning Miss Lamar. He also testified that he heard the sounds of a fight coming from Miss Lamar’s apartment and heard Miss Lamar shouting, “Help, he is raping me,” but that he did not see defendant in or around the apartment of Miss Lamar. Robinson identified the voice emitting from the apartment as that of the defendant. Robinson also testified that he called the police immediately upon hearing what defendant was saying and doing.

Edna Blake, a 6th floor resident of the building testified that around 3:00 or 4:00 o’clock in the morning she heard footsteps in the hallway, looked out and saw defendant standing on the fire escape. She later heard screams of a girl and a shot and. saw defendant getting off the elevator and going into his apartment. When she saw defendant, after the screams and shot, he was wearing a robe. Minutes later she saw him leaving his apartment and the building fully clothed. Kenneth E. Brooks, a police officer, testified that he was called to 6146 South Kenwood on the night in question to investigate an attempted rape. When he arrived at apartment 512, he saw Florine Lamar and she was bleeding heavily from the head. He further testified that he looked into her apartment and found it to be in a general state of disarray. He and his partner took Miss Lamar and Miss Pittman to the Woodlawn Hospital. Thereafter he and his partner returned to the building and inquired into the whereabouts of defendant. Unable to find him the officer and his partner returned to Woodlawn Hospital, where they picked up Miss Lamar and transferred her to Cook County Hospital. Officer Kobert Jennings testified to substantially the same facts as Officer Brooks. Detective Bruno Canale corroborated the testimony of the other two officers but added that in the apartment he saw a broken chair and a woman’s panties with the crotch torn out. He also found the apartment in a general state of disarray. Doctor Albert Samander testified that he treated Miss Lamar at Cook County Hospital and that he performed a pelvic to disclose the presence or non-presence of sperm in the vagina. The test was negative. The Doctor said that Miss Lamar was severely bruised about the head and body and that he stitched the scalp wound and applied medication to her badly swollen left eye. Leslie Wright, defendant’s mother, testified that her son returned home around 11:00 p. m. on September 7, 1961, ate dinner and went out again. The next time she saw him was right after the officers had left and after they had inquired as to the whereabouts of her son. She did not know whether her son was home at the time the crime took place. She testified that she was sleeping. The defendant testified that he was not at home at the time of the occurrence; that he was not in the building and that he returned as Miss Pittman and Miss Lamar were entering the squad car. It was then that he met and spoke to a girl named Joan as he got off the elevator on the 6th floor at 6146 South Kenwood. He testified that he did not know Joan’s last name. Defendant testified that after entering his apartment he left soon thereafter to return to the street. He looked up a friend by the name of McGee and remained with him for a few days. He could not give McGee’s first name or give an accurate address. On September 11,1961, defendant, having heard that he was being sought by the police, surrendered to Detective Canale.

At the close of the People’s case the defendant requested that he be given a lie test. Defendant insisted that the trial judge erred in not permitting him to take a lie test in order to introduce the results as evidence and thus add weight to his testimony that he was not at the scene when the crime allegedly occurred. Defendant says that there is no way of knowing what the test would have shown. The People reply that the trial court acted properly in refusing the defendant’s request to take a lie detector test in order to introduce such a test as evidence. Ill Rev Stats 1959, chap 38, par 736.2, in effect at the time the alleged crime was committed, reads:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

People v. Hill, 212 N.E.2d 259, 64 Ill. App. 2d 185, 1965 Ill. App. LEXIS 1113 (Ill. Ct. App. 1965).

212 N.E.2d 259 (People v. Hill) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

People v. Columbo
455 N.E.2d 733 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1983)
People v. Turner
342 N.E.2d 158 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1976)
People v. Ackerman
269 N.E.2d 737 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1971)