The People v. Caldwell

The defendant, C. B. Caldwell, was found guilty of murder in a jury trial in the circuit court of Cook County and sentenced to a term of 50 to 100 years imprisonment. The appellate court affirmed (79 Ill. App. 2d 273), and we granted leave to appeal primarily to consider defendant’s contention that it was reversible error to allow the jury to take a copy of his written confession with them into the jury room.

The defendant and Mrs. Bessie Mae Woods were lifelong acquaintances and neighbors in a Chicago apartment house where defendant lived in a room adjoining the Woods’s apartment. On the…