{ "id": 2770692, "name": "The People of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, vs. James Hinton, Plaintiff in Error", "name_abbreviation": "People v. Hinton", "decision_date": "1958-09-18", "docket_number": "No. 34655", "first_page": "424", "last_page": "428", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "14 Ill. 2d 424" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill.", "id": 8772, "name": "Illinois Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "405 Ill. 454", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill.", "case_ids": [ 2627046 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "457" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill/405/0454-01" ] }, { "cite": "414 Ill. 414", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill.", "case_ids": [ 5314018 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "416" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill/414/0414-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 436, "char_count": 6858, "ocr_confidence": 0.752, "pagerank": { "raw": 5.083252424145399e-07, "percentile": 0.9379176160463409 }, "sha256": "6f2302c4947d47b4eb1a473f56550877a44e32e389d258919558d22fd6bb0bc3", "simhash": "1:a32efea60f29412e", "word_count": 1182 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T16:07:16.799892+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "The People of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, vs. James Hinton, Plaintiff in Error." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Mr. Justice Schaeeer\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nJames Hinton was indicted in the criminal court of Cook County for the offense of taking indecent liberties with a child and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1957, chap. 38, pars. 109, 104.) He pleaded not guilty and waived a trial by jury. The court found him guilty of both offenses and sentenced him to the penitentiary for a term of not less than five nor more than ten years. He prosecutes this writ of error, and his sole contention is that the evidence is insufficient to- sustain the judgment.\nJames Sanders and Elliot Cooper, both eight years of age, testified that on the afternoon of Sunday, September 4, 1955, they approached a man outside a motion picture theater in Chicago and asked him for money to pay their admission. Both boys testified that the man, whom they identified as the defendant, said, \u201cFirst you go up to my house.\u201d Both boys testified that Cooper refused, but Sanders accepted. Sanders testified that he went with the man to his home where the acts charged in the indictment took place. The criminal nature of such acts is not disputed, and it is unnecessary to describe them. Sanders testified that the man then gave him thirty-five cents and he went to the movie and returned home about 8:00 o\u2019clock in the evening. On cross-examination, Sanders described the room in which the offenses were committed.\nPolice officer Williams testified that on the afternoon of September 4, 1955, he had a conversation with Sanders, and as a result proceeded \u201cto look for a man who had taken liberties with children in the neighborhood.\u201d In the course of this investigation he stopped defendant and questioned him about a red bicycle. Defendant denied owning such a bicycle. According to his own testimony, however, defendant had been riding such a bicycle immediately prior to his arrest. Officer Williams took the defendant into custody. Williams testified that shortly thereafter, in the presence of defendant, Sanders told his story, and Cooper also identified ^defendant as the man who- had spoken to him and Sanders outside the movie. Officer Williams testified that defendant said, \u201cI don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d\nThe defendant objected to Sanders\u2019s competence as a witness, and a voir dire examination was conducted to- determine the extent of his general knowledge, and his ability to remember and to report what he remembered. He did not remember when he first went to- school, and he was unable to state whether or not he had finished a grade at school. There were other instances of failure to answer simple questions. At the conclusion of the examination, the trial judge ruled that the boy \u201cwould not be a competent witness for the purpose of placing events in time in the past * * The same ruling was made as to Elliot Cooper after a similar preliminary examination.\nSanders testified that he and Cooper first saw defendant outside the theater about 4:30 P.M.; that he knew it was 4:30 because he had asked the lady at the ticket window, and that he saw officer Williams later on in the day. On cross-examination, he repeated that he had seen officer Williams when he came out of the theater, but, upon further interrogation, said that officer Williams told him to go home and go to bed and that it was \u201caround four o\u2019clock when I came home.\u201d Subsequently he testified that he saw the defendant for the first time on the day in question \u201caround about nighttime,\u201d and apparently in the company of officer Williams. He was then asked, \u201cWhere were you at 4:30 that day?\u201d The assistant State\u2019s Attorney objected on the ground that the question had been answered, and said, \u201cHe said he was in front of the show.\u201d An objection to this attempt to prompt the witness was sustained. Despite the prompting, he answered: \u201cI was at home. Yes, I was at home.\u201d On redirect Sanders was asked whether he went to the movie in the morning or in the afternoon. He answered, \u201cI think it was in the afternoon.\u201d He also testified on redirect that after he went to the movie he did not see officer Williams.\nThere are discrepancies in Cooper\u2019s testimony also. On direct examination he did not correct the prosecutor when his questions fixed the time of the encounter in front of the movie in the afternoon of September 4, 1955. On cross-examination he said the encounter took place in the morning. He repeated this statement on redirect, but when he was asked, \u201cAnd had you eaten your lunch?\u201d he answered, \u201cYes, sir.\u201d\nDorothy Sanders., the mother of James, was called by the prosecution and testified as to his age. Later she was called as a witness for the defense, and testified that her son was at home with her on the afternoon of September 4, 1955, and that she knew he was \u201cBecause I was there cooking dinner.\u201d On cross-examination she testified that he might have left the house to play for a while, after the television program. She also testified that she did not remember what took place on September 4, 1955, and that she \u201ccouldn\u2019t say what date it was,\u201d but her attempts to explain were cut off by the prosecutor.\nThe defense was an alibi, testified to- by defendant himself, by the woman defendant was about to marry, and by her fifteen-year-old daughter and her twelve-year-old son. It covered the period from early morning on September 4 until 5:3o or 6 :oo P.M.\nOn this record we can not say that the defendant\u2019s guilt was established beyond a reasonable doubt. If any offense was committed, it seems reasonably clear that it did not occur at the time fixed in the bill of particulars. It is not supposed that an eight-year-old child will remember details with the accuracy normally expected of his elders. But this does not warrant a relaxation of the requirement that the guilt of an accused person be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. As we have pointed out on more than one occasion: \u201cAn indecent liberties case is similar in character to that of rape, because it is an accusation easily-made, hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, though ever so innocent.\u201d (People v. Williams, 414 Ill. 414, 416; People v. Watkins, 405 Ill. 454, 457.) Perhaps the many serious contradictions in this record can be reconciled, but in the absence of a convincing reconciliation a conviction can not be sustained. For this reason the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.\nReversed and remanded.", "type": "majority", "author": "Mr. Justice Schaeeer" } ], "attorneys": [ "Thomas P. Sullivan, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.", "Latham Castle, Attorney General, of Springfield, and Benjamin S. Adamowski, State\u2019s Attorney, of Chicago, (Fred G. Leach, William H. South, Francis X. Riley, and John J. Stamos, of counsel,) for the People." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "(No. 34655.\nThe People of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, vs. James Hinton, Plaintiff in Error.\nOpinion filed September 18, 1958.\nThomas P. Sullivan, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.\nLatham Castle, Attorney General, of Springfield, and Benjamin S. Adamowski, State\u2019s Attorney, of Chicago, (Fred G. Leach, William H. South, Francis X. Riley, and John J. Stamos, of counsel,) for the People." }, "file_name": "0424-01", "first_page_order": 424, "last_page_order": 428 }