{
  "id": 2733940,
  "name": "The People of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, vs. Garland Dean Evans, Plaintiff in Error",
  "name_abbreviation": "People v. Evans",
  "decision_date": "1961-02-15",
  "docket_number": "No. 36082",
  "first_page": "403",
  "last_page": "406",
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    "name_abbreviation": "Ill.",
    "id": 8772,
    "name": "Illinois Supreme Court"
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    "name": "Ill."
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      "cite": "68 ALR2d 638",
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T17:52:13.796326+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "The People of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, vs. Garland Dean Evans, Plaintiff in Error."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Mr. Chief Justice Schaefer\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThe defendant, Garland Dean Evans, was indicted upon a charge of obtaining money by means of the confidence game. A jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of not less than seven nor more than ten years.\nIt is necessary to consider only one of the contentions that he raises upon this writ of error to review his conviction. He was not present during any portion of his trial, and he asserts that the trial court exceeded its power and violated his constitutional rights by proceeding with the trial in his absence. The State contends that he waived his right to be present.\nThe defendant was indicted on January 19, i960. On February 2, i960, he was presented with a copy of the indictment, and released on bail upon filing a bond in the sum of $3,000. On that date his attorney made an oral motion to quash the indictment. Pursuant to leave granted, a written motion to quash the indictment was filed on February 16. It was argued and overruled on February 23, i960. A number of cases, including this one, were allotted for jury trial during the two-week period commencing March 28, i960. On March 26 the names of additional witnesses were endorsed upon the indictment. The defendant\u2019s case was reached for trial on March 30. He was not present. Upon motion of his attorney the case was continued to April 4, and again to April 6. On April 6 in the absence of the defendant and over the objection of his counsel, the court entered a plea of not guilty for the defendant. A jury was selected and the trial proceeded. Defendant\u2019s attorney examined prospective jurors, cross-examined witnesses for the prosecution, tendered and objected to instructions, and argued the case to the jury, all in the absence of the defendant, and over objection. A verdict of guilty was returned on April 7, i960.\nBefore the jury was selected on April 6, the court heard testimony on the motion of defendant\u2019s attorney for a further continuance because of the defendant\u2019s absence. The bondsman testified that on March 20 he had a telephone conversation with defendant, who lived in Decatur, in which he told the defendant to get in touch with his attorney and to be in Champaign, where the trial was to be held, on March 28. Defendant\u2019s attorney testified that when the defendant called him on March 25, he told the defendant that his case was sixth or seventh from the top of the setting of cases to begin on March 28, that he was almost positive that this case would not come to trial during the week beginning Monday, March 28. In a colloquy with the court he stated that \u201cI, by my conversation, could very well have confused this man.\u201d And when the court asked whether the defendant could have been confused \u201cto the point where he might have thought the case would not be tried at all this setting?\u201d the attorney answered: \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d\nHe also testified that on March 28, after he learned that the first case on the setting was not going to trial, he asked the bondsman to instruct the defendant to be in court on March 30. Subsequently a woman, who represented herself as the defendant\u2019s landlady, called him from Decatur and told him that the defendant had gone to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to work on a construction job of short duration, and that he was staying at the Y.M.C.A. there.\nFurther testimony was heard upon the motion for a new trial. The defendant testified that he had a chance to go to work at Tulsa, and that he went there after his conversation with his attorney on March 20. He called his attorney from Tulsa on the evening of the day that testimony at the trial was concluded, and returned to Decatur by bus a few days later.\nUpon these facts, the State argues that the defendant waived his right to be present during the trial. The record does indeed show negligence on the part of the defendant and his attorney, and suggests even a disregard for the defendant\u2019s obligation to appear in court. But we need not inquire in detail into the defendant\u2019s precise state of mind. Nor can our decision be made on the basis of the State\u2019s argument that waiver is established by the simple fact of an absence for which the prosecution was not responsible.\nFor generations our law has shown an anxious concern lest any semblance of trial in absentia be sanctioned. (Bishop on Criminal Procedure, 3rd ed. (1880) secs. 265-273; see the numerous annotations dealing with the defendant\u2019s absence at particular stages of his trial which are referred to in 68 ALR2d 638.) That concern is not satisfied by an argument that does no more than disclaim the State\u2019s responsibility for the defendant\u2019s absence. And we should not be quick to hold that the delinquencies of the defendant will work a forfeiture of a right that has been so carefully safeguarded.\nThe decisions relied upon by the State are concerned with situations very different from the one before us. In People v. Harris, 302 Ill. 590, 593, the court held that the \u201cdefendant voluntarily absented himself from the trial and could not claim any advantage or right under the constitutional guaranty.\u201d But there the defendant was present \u201cat the door of the court room in the morning of the day when his counsel objected to proceeding with the trial.\u201d People v. De Simone, 9 Ill.2d 522, involved an obstreperous defendant who on some occasions during a lengthy trial refused to enter the courtroom, and on another occasion had to be removed from the courtroom because of his violent misconduct. In People v. Hill, 17 Ill.2d 112, this court for the first time sustained a conviction upon a record which failed to show that the defendant had entered a plea to the indictment. But that decision rested on the ground that the defendant\u2019s trial had been conducted throughout exactly as it would have been if the record showed a formal plea of not guilty. It did not deal with the trial of a defendant in his absence.\nThe judgment of the circuit court of Champaign County is reversed, and the cause is remanded for a new trial.\nReversed and remanded.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Mr. Chief Justice Schaefer"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Summers & Watson, of Champaign, for plaintiff in error.",
      "William L. Guild, Attorney General, of Springfield, and Robert W. McDonald, State\u2019s Attorney, of Urbana, (Fred G. Leach, Assistant Attorney General, and Robert J. Waaler, Assistant State\u2019s Attorney, of counsel,) for the People."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "(No. 36082.\nThe People of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, vs. Garland Dean Evans, Plaintiff in Error.\nOpinion filed Feb. 15, 1961.\nRehearing denied March 27, 1961.\nSummers & Watson, of Champaign, for plaintiff in error.\nWilliam L. Guild, Attorney General, of Springfield, and Robert W. McDonald, State\u2019s Attorney, of Urbana, (Fred G. Leach, Assistant Attorney General, and Robert J. Waaler, Assistant State\u2019s Attorney, of counsel,) for the People."
  },
  "file_name": "0403-01",
  "first_page_order": 417,
  "last_page_order": 420
}