Vignettes of the Criminal Law

Abstract

where he was serving a twenty-five year sentence for robbery of the United States Mails. The state's attorney's office was not satisfied to see him punished merely by imprisonment. They wanted his life for the murder that resulted, according to their theory, as an outgrowth of the mail robbery. Their contention was that after the defendant had robbed the mails and was carrying away his loot, he approached a doctor driving a Ford Coupe. He commanded the physician to step out of his car. The defendant jumped in and drove away. He had not driven far when he was approached by a deputy sheriff of Cook County who had been directed to the scene of the robbery. The sheriff was slain, apparently, as he tried to make the arrest. There was no direct identification of the accused as the man who killed the deputy. Circumstantial evidence, however, indicated that he, must have been the slayer. He made no statements to the police upon his arrest, a short time after the robbery. The Ford Coupe was abandoned in Barrington, many miles from the southwest part of the county, where the hold-up and murder took place. To prosecute this hanging case, the State's Attorney assigned two of his most experienced men, attorneys bent upon securing a verdict of death. To complete the picture was a judge known to be very strict in his rulings, determined to enforce the law to its last letter. A court reporter testified for the defense as to the answers which hsad been made by two of the state's witnesses to questions propounded at the coroner's inquest. Such testimony was not admissible as original evidence, on account of being hearsay. A foundation had been laid for it, however, by asking two prosecuting witnesses on cross-examination if they had not made the statements in question at the inquest. The court reporter's testimony revealed that they had in fact made these statements at that time. Next was called the defendant's mother, whose address proved to be a street in the village