People ex rel. Williams v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 22 November 1949
• Docket Number: No. 31164.,31164.
• Citation: 88 N.E.2d 860,404 Ill. 338
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. WILLIAMS v. ROBINSON.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

404 Ill. 338

88 N.E.2d 860

PEOPLE ex rel. WILLIAMS

v.ROBINSON.

No. 31164.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 22, 1949.

Original habeas corpus proceeding by the People on the relation of Perry Williams, petitioner, against Browning Robinson, warden, respondent, to secure petitioner's release from custody from the Illinois State Penitentiary where he was serving an indeterminate term of from one year to life for armed robbery.

The Supreme Court, Gunn, J., held that the petitioner was not entitled to discharge as the fulfillment of a subsequent sentence for robbery committed while petitioner was on parole was for a lesser maximum than his original sentence and that the sentence for armed robbery had not been terminated in a manner provided by law and was lawful and remanded petitioner to custody of the warden.Perry Williams, pro se.

Ivan A. Elliott, Attorney General (Wayne R. Cook, of Danville, of counsel), for respondent.

GUNN, Justice.

Petitioner, Perry Williams, filed his petition for writ of habeas corpus for discharge from the Illinois State Penitentiary, alleging that by reason of matters occurring since his conviction the judgment had become void, and that he was entited to a discharge under a writ of habeas corpus. We required the Warden of the penitentiary to make answer to the petition, and upon the petition and answer an issue of law was formed.

The answer discloses that on January 22, 1931, the petitioner was convicted, in the circuit court of Adams County, of robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to the Illinois State Penitentiary at Menard until discharged by law. At that time the statute provided that the punishment for armed robbery was imprisonment in the penitentiary for an indeterminate term of from one year to life. On December 16, 1935, the petitioner was ordered paroled to Adams County, and shortly thereafter was released from the penitentiary upon parole. On April 30, 1936, while on parole, the petitioner engaged in a holdup robbery of a bank in Pike County, and on July 22, 1936, was convicted of robbery upon his plea of guilty and sentenced to the Illinois State Penitentiary at Menard for a term of from one to twenty years. Subsequent to this date, and on September 21, 1936, the petitioner was declared a violator of his parole granted upon the prior robbery sentence entered in the circuit court of Adams County. On October 30, 1947, the petitioner was discharged of his sentence entered in the Pike County circuit court, as having been fully served, but the Warden of the penitentiary continued to hold him in prison as a parole violator on the first sentence entered, pursuant to the judgment of the circuit court of Adams County. At the present time the petitioner remains in the custody of respondent solely by virtue of the sentence imposed upon him in 1931 by the circuit court of Adams County.

The petitioner contends that service in full on the second offense, carrying a punishment of from one to twenty years, discharges him from serving the balance of his sentence on the first conviction, running from one year to life. He has presented no authorities which sustain this contention. Apparently, it is the theory of petitioner that the Parole Board has no authority to postpone the serving of the sentence on the conviction in Adams County, caused by the violation of his parole, until after the service in full of his sentence upon the conviction in Pike...