(DOWNLOAD) "People v. Mctush" by Supreme Court of Illinois # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: People v. Mctush
- Author : Supreme Court of Illinois
- Release Date : January 15, 1980
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 64 KB
Description
The defendant, John McTush, was convicted of murder and armed robbery and burglary on October 19, 1977, by a jury in the circuit court of Cook County. Lonzell Stone, a co-defendant, was tried without a jury contemporaneously and was also found guilty in manner and form as charged in the indictment. After a hearing in aggravation and mitigation, McTush was sentenced to a term of 60 to 90 years' imprisonment and Stone was sentenced to a term of 25 to 50 years. On appeal to the appellate court (78 Ill. App.3d 603), the convictions of McTush were vacated and the cause remanded for an evidentiary hearing regarding the existence of an independent origin for a witness' in-court identification of McTush. Stone's conviction for armed robbery was reversed, his remaining convictions were affirmed, his sentence was vacated, and the cause was remanded for resentencing. The State appealed from the appellate court's judgment. We granted its petition for leave to appeal. (73 Ill.2d R. 315(a).) Only the validity of McTush's convictions is involved in this appeal. On February 20, 1976, two men were observed entering the Kar-Life Battery Station at 6959 South Ashland Avenue in Chicago. According to the testimony of Terrence Watson, who was 11 years old at the time of the occurrence, he saw David Thomas, an employee of the battery shop, strike McTush in the mouth. McTush then shot Thomas four or five times and removed what was circumstantially proved at trial to be the shop's cash receipts from Thomas' jacket pocket. Terrence further testified that the other man, later identified as Lonzell Stone, went to the rear of the shop, out of his line of sight. Moments later Terrence heard more gunshots. Police officers who later searched the shop found the body of Dennis Harrison in the rear of the shop. He had been shot two times. As the men turned to come out of the shop toward their car, they looked directly at Terrence. Terrence then ran east on 70th Street toward Justine Avenue in a direction away from his home. After the men drove away, Terrence went home. Terrence later testified at trial that he saw the two men drive away in a black and brown Oldsmobile Delta 88 with a dent in the right fender. Terrence's mother, Mrs. Ira May Watson, looking from her kitchen window on the second floor of an apartment building adjacent to the battery shop, observed two men leave the shop and noticed that one of the men strongly resembled McTush.