Court Opinion

ID: 9743164
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:26:59.637348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:39.685544
License: Public Domain

DEMPSEY, J., dissenting: My colleagues find the evidence improbable and unsatisfactory and because of this they have a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt. I do not. The 16-year-old complaining witness, Vincent Kunicki, and his two friends were on the west side of Wayne Avenue talking to a girl who was baby-sitting. The girl’s mother was concerned about her. She had telephoned her daugher 45 minutes earlier to find out why she had not come home. Her daughter was delayed because the baby’s mother had not returned. It was approaching 11 p. m., the baby’s mother was then two hours late and the boys went to check on the girl. While they were talking to her, Patrick Maloney, who lived on the second floor of the defendant Eyre’s building on the east side of Wayne and who was a friend and former neighbor of Vincent, called to them from his bedroom window. Vincent and one of the boys crossed the street to talk to Maloney. They did not approach the defendant’s building menacingly. There is no evidence to support the Eyres’ suspicion that they possessed firecrackers and intended to use them or anything else upon the Eyres’ property. They were quiet and orderly. Maloney, a witness called by the defendant, testified that while they were talking Eyre came out of the building and told Vincent, who was doing nothing, to keep moving. Vincent replied, “Okay, Bud,” and Eyre put his hand on Vincent’s shoulder and said, “Come on. Let’s go.” Vincent then started swinging at Eyre. The defendant was charged with the offense of battery. A person commits battery if he intentionally or knowingly without legal justification makes physical contact of a provoking nature with another person. Ill Rev Stats 1965, c 38, § 12-3(a). The defendant committed this offense. He made physical contact of a provoking nature with the complainant when he seized the boy by the shoulder and told him to get going. That Eyre did this was established by the testimony of four of the seven eyewitnesses — two of them his own. A fifth eyewitness said he started the altercation. Eyre himself impliedly admitted seizing the boy by one arm and holding on to it before a blow was struck. He testified : “So I went out the door. I told him to keep moving. I reminded him that it was past curfew. He aimed at me. I tried to grab the other arm but couldn’t. He was hitting me with his free arm.” Vincent, a third-year high school student, was on a public sidewalk. He had a lawful right to be where he was. He was doing what he had a perfect right to: talking to a friend and old neighbor. When Eyre grabbed his shoulder and told him to move on, he had a right to stand his ground and to repel force with force. Section 7-1 of the Criminal Code states: “A person is justified in the use of force against another when and to the extent that he reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself . . . against such other’s imminent use of unlawful force.” Ill Rev Stats 1965, c 38, § 7-1. People v. Bush, 414 Ill 441, 111 NE 326 (1953); People v. Motuzas, 352 Ill 340, 185 NE 614 (1933). The force used by Vincent in defending himself against Eyre’s unlawful use of force seems to have been ineffectual. Eyre said he was hit on both sides of the face, and his wife said there were bruises on his face. But the only impartial witness, the police officer who had been summoned to the scene, saw neither marks nor bruises on him. On the other hand, the force used upon the boy by the 37-year-old defendant who weighed 190 pounds and who was six feet, two inches tall, is shown by the boy’s condition when the quarrel ended. He was bruised, bleeding from the mouth and nose and was suffering from an internal injury which required a doctor’s care. The trial court was fully justified in finding that a battery was committed by Eyre who, under the prodding of his wife, stormed out of his building, accosted the boy, grabbed his arm and told him to get off the public sidewalk. Although what took place afterwards had no bearing on the initial offense the court also would have been fully justified in believing that after the fisticuffs started, Eyre was the continuing aggressor, that he dealt the damaging blows, pushed the boy to the ground and kicked him in the side while he was down. At the very least, it was the trial court’s province to determine whom to believe. The testimony of those who witnessed the occurrence differed in some respects — depending upon their vantage points and viewpoints. This conflicting testimony alone would make the case one for the trier of fact. I find no reason for placing this court’s evaluation of the testimony above that of the trial court who had every advantage in observing the witnesses and in determining their credibility.