People v. Hammond

• Decision Date: 24 September 1953
• Docket Number: No. 32582,32582
• Citation: 1 Ill.2d 65,115 N.E.2d 331
• Parties: PEOPLE v. HAMMOND.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 331

115 N.E.2d 331

1 Ill.2d 65

PEOPLE v. HAMMOND.

No. 32582.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Sept. 24, 1953.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 16, 1953.

Donald J. Hammond, pro se.

Ivan A. Elliott, Atty. Gen., and John Gutknecht, State's Atty., Chicago (John T. Gallagher, Rudolph L. Janega, and Arthur F. Manning, Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

FULTON, Justice.

This is a writ of error to review a judgment of the criminal court of Cook County. The record contains only a transcript of the common-law record. The plaintiff in error was granted leave to file a writ of error in this court as a poor person and appears pro se. He was indicted by the grand jury at the May, 1949, term of said court for the crime of burglary.

The record shows that on April 24, 1951, plaintiff in error appeared in court in person and pleaded guilty to the first count of the indictment, and was adjudged guilty of the crime of burglary and sentenced to a term of ten to fifteen years in the Illinois State Penitentiary, where he is now confined.

The pertinent portion of the first count of the indictment reads as follows: 'That one Frank Adam Herzio otherwise called Frank Herzig and one Donald J. Hammond otherwise called Donald Hammond late of the County of Cook, on the twenty-first day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and forty-nine, in said County of Cook, in the State of Illinois aforesaid, feloniously, burglariously, wilfully, maliciously and forcibly did break and enter a certain building, to-wit: Office of Internal Revenue, then and there in the lawful possession and control of the United States of America, then and there belonging to said United States of America and then and there situated at Number Sixty-two East One Hundred Fifty-fourth Street in Harvey, Cook County, Illinois, * * *.'

The contention of plaintiff in error in this court is that the offense described in the first count of the indictment was purely a case of burglary against the property of the United States of America and should have been tried in a Federal Court; that there was no crime against the State of Illinois; that the criminal court of Cook County lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter and that the judgment and sentence of that court is void for lack of jurisdiction to try the cause.

Because of the facts recited, plaintiff in error claims that he has been deprived of his State and Federal constitutional rights for which the judgment and sentence of the criminal court of Cook County should be reversed.

The question raised by plaintiff in error has been the source of much litigation in both the State and Federal courts. The general rule has been many times defined as follows: 'Except insofar as the right to punish particular offenses may be exclusive in the federal or state legislatures, the same act may be defined and punished as an offense against the state and against the United States. 22 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 131. Jurisdiction to punish for a crime committed within the acknowledged limits of a state belongs to the state, unless it conclusively appears to be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts. Where this is not done, the same act may be punished as an offense against the United States and also an offense against the state. Westfall v. United States, 274 U.S. 256 (47 S.Ct. 629), 71 L.Ed. 1036. In United States v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377 (43 S.Ct. 141), 67 L.Ed. (314), where the defendant was charged with the illegal manufacture of intoxicating liquor, the court held that an act denounced as a crime by both national and state sovereignties...