{
  "id": 2823969,
  "name": "The People of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, vs. Arthur Lee Adkins, Plaintiff in Error",
  "name_abbreviation": "People v. Adkins",
  "decision_date": "1963-11-26",
  "docket_number": "No. 37376",
  "first_page": "332",
  "last_page": "336",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "29 Ill. 2d 332"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ill.",
    "id": 8772,
    "name": "Illinois Supreme Court"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 29,
    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T19:18:19.423812+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. Arthur Lee Adkins, Plaintiff in Error."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Mr. Justice Schaefer\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThe defendant, Arthur Lee Adkins, was found guilty of rape after a bench trial, and was sentenced to a term of twenty years in the Illinois State Penitentiary. On this writ of error he contends that the evidence did not establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.\nThe prosecutrix, Lillie Greer, testified that her mother and three other women \u201cclub members\u201d drove her home from a party shortly after 3 A.M. on April 23, 1961. She entered a lighted hallway on the first floor where she waited for a self-service elevator. The defendant entered the building and stepped onto the elevator with her. He stopped the elevator at the second floor, drew a \u201cblueish rusty looking gun\u201d and said \u201cDon\u2019t say anything. Come on.\u201d He ordered her to get off the elevator and, with the gun against her back, forced her to walk ahead of him down a stairway to the first floor and into the front seat of a \u201c \u201959 red Pontiac with red and white upholstering,\u201d which was parked in the rear parking lot. He drove to the rear of a building at the corner of 39th Street and Lake Park Avenue and, with the gun in one hand, forced her to remove parts of her underclothing and engage in sexual intercourse with him. He then ordered her at gunpoint to get out of the car and to precede him into an empty building \u201cthrough the basement part up to the first floor\u201d and into a bathroom which had no lights. She was there forced to remove her coat, lie on the floor and again have sexual relations with him. During this act the gun was on the floor beside them. The defendant left the building after telling her not to leave for ten minutes.\nThe prosecutrix took a taxi back to her apartment. She testified that she told the driver what had happened to her, and that when she reached her apartment she related the details to her mother and some club members who were waiting there with her husband and children. \u201cAbout three minutes\u201d after she returned, police detectives arrived. They had apparently been called earlier by her mother. The prosecutrix testified that she gave a full description of her assailant, his car arid his gun to the detectives who wrote down the information. The prosecution was unable to produce this description when it was called for by the court at the trial. On cross-examination the prosecutrix testified that on the night she was raped the defendant wore the same brown suit he was then wearing in the courtroom, and also wore a necktie, \u201cbrown shoes, no hat, and a brownish color three-quarter length coat.\u201d\nWhen two police detectives attempted to arrest the defendant on April 25 he fled and was apprehended only after he was shot and wounded. The precise reason for the arrest does not appear in the record, although it is apparent that it was prompted at least in part by certain armed robberies to which the defendant subsequently pleaded guilty. On April 26 the prosecutrix picked out the defendant from a lineup of about ten men at a police station and identified him as her assailant.\nThe State introduced in evidence a black revolver with no rust on it. One of the arresting detectives testified that he took this gun from the defendant\u2019s apartment after his arrest. During her testimony the prosecutrix identified this gun as the one used by the defendant on April 23.\nAnother detective who participated in the arrest testified that keys removed from the defendant\u2019s pocket immediately following his arrest fit the ignition switch of a \u201c \u201959 two door Bonneville Pontiac\u201d which was parked in front of the apartment building in which defendant lived. In response to questions about the color of the car he stated that \u201cI know that the' bottom part was red\u201d and that to the best of his recollection the car was solid red. He did not recall the color of the upholstery.\nThe defendant denied that he raped the prosecutrix and testified that he had never seen her prior to the police station line-up on April 25. He stated that in the early morning hours of April 23 he attended a party in his apartment building but went to his room at about 1:3o or 2 A.M. and did not thereafter leave his apartment. He admitted that' the gun belonged to him, and he also testified that on April 23 he was in possession of a 1959 red Pontiac which had a white top and all white interior upholstery.\nDefendant contends that the testimony of the prosecutrix was not clear and convincing and that the State did not produce sufficient corroborating evidence to sustain the conviction. It is true, as the defendant points out, that there was no testimony by the taxi driver, the prosecutrix\u2019s mother, her husband or the women club members to whom she told her story. Her testimony that she complained to the police is not corroborated by the direct testimony of any police officer, but only inferentially by their subsequent conduct.\nHer testimony was, however, corroborated by the defendant\u2019s admission that the gun was his and that on the date in question he possessed the kind of a car that was used in the crime. The defendant\u2019s contention that her. testimony was not clear and convincing is based entirely upon asserted inconsistencies in her description of the car and the gun. She testified on direct examination that the car was a red 1959 Pontiac with red and white upholstery. On cross-examination she indicated that the car was solid red. A detective testified that he thought the car was solid red but did not remember the color of the upholstery. The defendant testified that the car was a two-tone red and white 1959 Pontiac, with all white upholstery. On direct examination the prosecutrix described the gun used by her assailant as \u201cblueish rusty looking\u201d and on cross-examination as \u201cblueish looking and rusty.\u201d The gun introduced in evidence and identified by the prosecutrix at the trial as the one used by the defendant was black and not rusty. We are of the opinion that these inconsistencies in the testimony were not so significant as to preclude a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.\nThe judgment of the criminal court of Cook County is affirmed.\nJudgment affirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Mr. Justice Schaefer"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Donald S. Frisch, of Chicago, appointed by the court, for plaintiff in error.",
      "William G. Clark, Attorney General, of Springfield, and Daniel P. Ward, State\u2019s Attorney, of Chicago, (Fred G. Leach and E. Michael O\u2019Brien, Assistant Attorneys General, and Elmer C. Kissane and Marvin E. Aspen, Assistant State\u2019s Attorneys, of counsel,) for appellant."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "(No. 37376.\nThe People of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, vs. Arthur Lee Adkins, Plaintiff in Error.\nOpinion filed November 26, 1963.\nDonald S. Frisch, of Chicago, appointed by the court, for plaintiff in error.\nWilliam G. Clark, Attorney General, of Springfield, and Daniel P. Ward, State\u2019s Attorney, of Chicago, (Fred G. Leach and E. Michael O\u2019Brien, Assistant Attorneys General, and Elmer C. Kissane and Marvin E. Aspen, Assistant State\u2019s Attorneys, of counsel,) for appellant."
  },
  "file_name": "0332-01",
  "first_page_order": 338,
  "last_page_order": 342
}