People v. Harris

377 N.E.2d 28 (1978)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Miss Baker was sitting inside her car and Harris (D) was standing behind the car with a pistol in his hand. D and Miss Baker had been keeping company. For much of the evening, they had been engaged in an argument with D accusing the victim of infidelity. As the argument became more heated, D, who was driving, reached down and picked up a revolver from the floor of the car and placed it in his lap with the barrel pointed toward Miss Baker. He made several remarks which Miss Baker interpreted as threats to kill her. She opened the door on her side of the car, got out and began to run away, but ran into a barbed wire fence, injuring her leg. D also got out of the car. He did not pursue her but remained standing by the car. She returned to the car and made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the gun, which D was holding in his hand and pointing in her general direction. She then got into the car on the driver's side and drove off toward a nearby farmhouse. She testified that as she drove off, she looked in the rear vision mirror and saw D standing behind the car. He was holding the gun with both hands, and pointing it at her. Then she heard something strike the rear window, and the broken pane of glass in the rear window fell out of its frame. There were no other witnesses, but following this episode, the police were summoned, and they found D walking down the road near the scene of the episode just described. When the car was located, the police officers testified, the rear glass was broken, and a bullet fragment was found on the left side of the rear seat. D was charged with attempted murder. D objected to the jury instructions: 'A person commits the crime of murder who kills an individual if, in performing the acts which cause the death, he intends to kill or do great bodily harm to that individual.' D objected to the last of the instructions on the ground that it told the jury it could find him guilty of attempted murder if the jury found that he had acted only with the intent to do great bodily harm and did not have the intent to cause death. D was convicted. The Appellate Court for the Fourth District held that D's objections had been waived since they were not renewed in his post-trial motion. The court also stated that the last instruction was proper. The court, therefore, affirmed the conviction. The court did remand the case for resentencing. The State appealed from this part of the judgment.