People ex rel. Ross v. Becker

• Decision Date: 18 November 1942
• Docket Number: No. 26776.,26776.
• Citation: 44 N.E.2d 862
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. ROSS v. BECKER.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

44 N.E.2d 862

PEOPLE ex rel. ROSS

v.BECKER.

No. 26776.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 18, 1942.

Original petition for a writ of habeas corpus by the People, on the relation of James W. Ross, relator, opposed by C. F. Becker, Warden.

Petitioner discharged.

James W. Ross, pro se.

George F. Barrett, Atty. Gen., for respondent.

GUNN, Justice.

Petitioner, James W. Ross, filed his original petition for habeas corpus in this court and alleged he was unlawfully restrained of his liberty in the Illinois State Penitentiary at Menard, Illinois, by the warden of said penitentiary. The petition alleges he was convicted in January, 1926, of the crime of uttering a fictitious check, and after serving five and one-half years was released on a banishment parole issued in pursuance of section 7a of the Sentence and Parole Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1931, chap. 38, par. 808), wherein he was commanded to leave the State of Illinois and go to the State of Massachusetts to serve his parole under the supervision of the Department of Welfare of that State.

The petition further alleges that in October, 1941, the respondent caused a warrant to be issued against petitioner, alleging he was a fugitive from justice because of a violation of the said parole while outside of the State of Illinois, and upon the requisition of the Governor of the State of Illinois was returned to Illinois and placed in the penitentiary to serve the balance of his original sentence. It also alleges he demanded, and was refused, the right to employ counsel to contest extradition, and that he sought to file a petition for habeas corpus to the circuit court of Randolph county, which was denied; and that he is now illegally confined in the Illinois State Penitentiary at Menard and entitled to be discharged.

The first point to which our attention is directed is that of the judgment of the court, which directed the sheriff of St. Clair county to take the petitioner ‘to the penitentiary of this State at Chester, Illinois, and be delivered to the warden or keeper of said penitentiary, and the said warden or keepter is hereby required and commanded to take the body of the said defendant, James W. Ross, and confine him in said penitentiary in safe and secure custody. * * *’ The legal name of the penitentiary at the time of the conviction in 1926 was Southern Illinois Penitentiary. Smith-Hurd Ill.Rev.Stat.1923, chap. 108, par. 55.

In People v. Wood, 318 Ill. 388, 149 N.E. 273, the judgment of the court...