Court Opinion

ID: 9523435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:42:06.665496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:05:39.396863
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE CRAVEN, dissenting: The defendant was charged with the burglary of the 101 Auto Ranch in Urbana, Illinois. The offense was alleged to have taken place on September 30, 1970. Hilliard, a confessed accomplice, testified for the prosecution and was recalled for rebuttal testimony. Prior to that time a police officer had indicated the circumstances relating to the defendant’s arrest at Ted Christman’s Automobile Sales lot on October 2,1970. Objection was made to the testimony of Hilliard that his testimony would bring out other crimes which would be prejudicial. The objection was overruled, and the witness Hilliard testified and that testimony as abstracted is as follows: “Q. Would you tell the jury and the Court why you, on October 2nd, along with Mr. Bolton went to Ted Christman’s auto sales at night? A. Well, we uh, had the keys to a CTO. Q. Why were you—who had the keys? A. Rick did. Q. Who is he? A. Bolton Q. What was his intentions to do with those keys? A. Take the car and go driving around. Q. What car was that? A. Blue CTO Q. Where was it? A. Sitting on Ted Christman’s, uh, used car lot. Q. Do you know when and where he got the keys to that car? A. When we went over there and looked at cars. Q. When was that? A. Mmmm—a couple of days before we went to get—before we stole the keys. Several days before, I saw Rick Bolton take these keys from over the sun visor of the CTO. We took the car and drove it around campus and were putting it back when the police arrived. My father works at Ted Christman’s, but we did not have authority from him, Ted Christman, or anyone else to take the car. Taking the car was Rick Bolton’s idea.” The majority opinion concludes that there was no error in the admission of that testimony upon authority of People v. Daugherty and People v. Guyton. As I read this record, Hilliard's testimony was used for impeachment on collateral issues and injected into the case criminal activity of the defendant Bolton for which he was not on trial and which was not relevant nor necessary to establish identity, intent, knowledge, motive, a common scheme or design, or a fact material to the issue on trial. People v. Cage, 34 Ill.2d 530, 216 N.E.2d 805.