Bute v. People of State of Illinois

• Decision Date: 19 April 1948
• Docket Number: No. 398,398
• Citation: 333 U.S. 640,68 S.Ct. 763,92 L.Ed. 986
• Parties: BUTE v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF ILLINOIS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

333 U.S. 640

68 S.Ct. 763

92 L.Ed. 986

BUTE

v PEOPLE OF STATE OF ILLINOIS.

No. 398.

Argued Feb. 12, 1948.

Decided April 19, 1948.

[Syllabus from pages 640-642 intentionally omitted]

Mr. Victor Brudney, of New York City, for petitioner.

Mr. William C. Wines, of Chicago, Ill., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BURTON delivered the opinion of the Court.

In the Circuit Court of La Salle County, Illinois, the petitioner, Roy Bute, pleaded guilty to the crime of 'taking indecent liberties with children' as charged in each of two indictments and, on each plea, was sentenced to confinement in the Illinois State Penitentiary for not less than one nor more than 20 years, the sentences to run consecutively. Each common law record is silent on the subject of counsel for the petitioner's defense. The issue here is whether or not each state sentence shall be held to have been imposed in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States¹ because each common law record shows that the petitioner appeared 'in his own proper person' and does not show that the court inquired as to the petitioner's desire to be represented by counsel, or his ability to procure counsel, or his desire to have counsel assigned to him to assist him in his defense, or that such counsel was offered or assigned to him. We hold that such a silence in the respective records does not suffice to invalidate the sentences. We hold further that, in the absence of any showing beyond that in these records, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amn dment did not require the Illinois court to make the inquiries or the offer or assignment of counsel now claimed to have been the right of the petitioner.

At the time of these indictments, June 17, 1938, the petitioner was 57 years old. Each indictment, in its first count, charged him with taking indecent liberties on May 19, 1938, with a girl under the age of 15, and, in is second count, with attempting to do so. The first indictment related to a girl of eight and the second to a girl of 11. The offenses charged were violations of Ill.Rev.Stat. c. 38, § 109 (1937).² The intelligibility of the indictments is evident from the following language quoted from the first:

'That Roy Bute late of said County, on to wit: the 19th day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight at and within the said County of La Salle, the said Roy Bute being a male person of the age of seventeen (17) years and upwards, did then and there unlawfully and feloniously take certain immoral, improper and indecent liberties with a certain female child, under the age of fifteen (15) years, and of the age of eight (8) years, to-wit, * * * with intent of arousing, appealing to and gratifying the lust, passion and sexual desires of him the said Roy Bute contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the same People of the State of Illinois.'³

The material portions of the records in these cases are identical, except for the names and ages of the children. They contain all that was before the Supreme Court of Illinois or that is before this Court. The following appears in each:

'Arraignment and plea of guilty—June 20, 1938

'Now on this day come the said People by Taylor E. Wilhelm, State's Attorney, and the said defendant in his own proper person also comes; Whereupon the said defendant is furnished with a copy of the indictment, a list of witnesses and jurors herein.

'And the said defendant being now arraigned before the bar of this Court moves the Court for leave to enter his plea of Guilty of the crime of taking indecent liberties with children in manner and form as charged in the first count of the indictment herein; and the Court having admonished and explained to the said defendant the consequences and penalties, which will result from said plea, and the said defendant still persisting in his desire to enter his plea of guilty to the crime oft aking indecent liberties with children, in manner and form as charged in the first count of the indictment herein, the court grants such leave.

'Thereupon the said defendant enters his plea of guilty of the crime of taking indecent liberties with children, in manner and form as charged in the first count of the indictment herein.

'Thereupon the Court finds the age of the said defendant to be fifty-seven (57) years.

'Judgment

'Now again on this day come the said People by Taylor E. Wilhelm, State's Attorney, and the said defendant Roy Bute, in his own proper person also comes, and the said defendant, Roy Bute, not saying anything further why the judgment of the Court should not now be pronounced against him on his plea of guilty of the crime of taking indecent liberties with children in manner and form as charged in the first count of the indictment herein, heretofore entered herein.

'Whereupon it is Ordered by the Court that the said defendant, Roy Bute, be and he is hereby sentenced on said plea of guilty as aforesaid to confinement in the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet for a period of not less than one (1) year, nor more than twenty (20) years.'

In October, 1946, the petitioner, while serving his sentence in the Illinois State Penitentiary, and appearing pro se, filed in the Supreme Court of Illinois motions asking leave 'to Sue as a Poor Person for Writ of Error * * *' to review each of the original proceedings. These were granted and he filed his petitions, pro se, based upon the common law records in the respective cases. He relied particularly upon the claim that he had been denied representation by counsel, that the trial court had not advised him of his rights or of his right to the assistance of counsel and that he had been rushed to trial with such expedition as to deprive him of a fair and impartial trial, all of which rights he claimed were guaranteed to him by the State and Federal Constitutions.

The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed both judgments. 396 Ill. 588, 72 N.E.2d 813. It denied expressly each of the abovementioned claims and denied a rehearing. We granted certiorari in recognition of the frequently arising constitutional principle involved. 332 U.S. 756, 68 S.Ct. 40. The petitioner's presentations, pro se, were marked with professional accuracy and clarity but the petition for certiorari states that the petitioner is ignorant of the law as he was at the time of his trial, and that the documents filed by him pro se had been prepared for him. We appointed a member of the Bar of this Court to act as counsel for the petitioner here and the petitioner's claims have been fully and competently presented to this Court.

Effect of Fourteenth Amendment.

The cases turn upon the meaning of 'due process of law' under the Fourteenth Amendment in relation to the assistance of counsel for the defense of the accused in state criminal trials such as these. In Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158, 84 A.L.R. 527, this Court granted relief in a group of capital cases which demonstrated the essential need for applying the full force of the Fourteenth Amendment to the invalidation of purportedly valid judgments rednered in a state court under the circumstances there shown. Those and other less extreme casses have well illustrated the kind of service to the cause of justice which can be rendered by this Court in thus giving effect to the Fourteenth Amendment.

'The due process of law clause in the Fourteenth Amendment does not take up the statutes of the several states and make them the test of what it requires; nor does it enable this court to revise the decisions of the state courts on questions of state law. What it does require is that state action, whether through one agency or another, shall be consistent with the fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions and not infrequently are designated as 'law of the land.' Those prn ciples are applicable alike in all the states and do not depend upon or vary with local legislation.' Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U.S. 312, 316, 317, 47 S.Ct. 103, 104, 71 L.Ed. 270, 48 A.L.R. 1102.

'This court has never attempted to dofine with precision the words 'due process of law,' nor is it necessary to do so in this case. It is sufficient to say that there are certain immutable principles of justice, which inhere in the very idea of free government, which no member of the Union may disregard, as that no man shall be condemned in his person or property without due notice and an opportunity of being heard in his defence.' Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 389, 390, 18 S.Ct. 383, 387, 42 L.Ed. 780.

The foregoing statements were referred to with approval in Powell v. Albama, supra, 287 U.S. at pages 67, 71, 72, 53 S.Ct. at pages 63, 65.

The present case, on the other hand, illustrates equally well he kind of judgments by a state court that should not be invalidated as lacking in the due process of law required by the Fourteenth Amendment. This is so, although the precedure followed, in 1938, by the state court in the instant cases, as to counsel for the accused might not have satisfied the practice then required of a federal court in the case of comparable federal crimes. The Fourteenth Amendment, however, does not say that no state shall deprive any person of liberty without following the federal process of law as prescribed for the federal courts in comparable federal cases. It says merely 'nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; * * *.' This due process is not an equivalent for the process of the federal courts or for the process of any particular state. It has reference rather to a standard of process that may cover many varieties of processes that are expressive of differing combinations of historical or modern, local or other juridical standards, provided they do...