People v. Baxton
| Decision Date | 24 January 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 34115,34115 |
| Citation | 139 N.E.2d 754,10 Ill.2d 295 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Henry BAXTON, Plaintiff in Error. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Henry Baxton, pro se.
Latham Castle, Atty. Gen. (Fred G. Leach, Decatur, of counsel), for the People.
Defendant, Henry Baxton, was indicted at the October, 1951, term of the circuit court of Lee County for the murder of Julia Simpkins. At the time of his arraignment the court determined he was unable to employ counsel and, at his request, appointed the Public Defender to represent him. A plea of not guilty was entered, a request was made for a jury trial, and the cause was set for trial on October 29, 1951, some 24 days later. On the morning of October 25, however, defendant appeared in court without counsel and asked for leave to withdraw his plea of not guilty and to enter a plea of guilty ot murder as charged in the indictment. Upon defendant's representation that his action had followed consultation with his appointed attorney and that he no longer wanted an attorney and desired to defend himself, the court, after a most thorough admonition, accepted the substituted plea. The afternoon of the same day defendant again appeared, this time accompanied by his appointed counsel, and the court, on its own motion, ordered that all proceedings of the morning be set aside. Thereafter, defendant again moved to substitute a plea of guilty, was again fully admonished by the court, and again persisted in his plea which was accepted by the court. Following a hearing of evidence in aggravation and mitigation, which disclosed that defendant had beaten and cut his victim to death with a whisky bottle after an evening of drinking and brawling, defendant, then 39 years old, was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of 99 years. Appearing pro se, he has prosecuted this writ of error for review.
Defendant's fundamental claim appears to be that he was denied a fair trial and equal protection of the law. To support such a position he first advances various objections to the indictment returned against him and to the competency of the evidence before the grand jury, on which it was based. These are matters, however, that can be raised only by a motion to quash the indictment and a ruling thereon preserved by a bill of exceptions. People v. Corbett, 387 Ill. 41, 55 N.E.2d 74. Having failed to make and preserve such objections, defendant cannot raise the question. People v. Knox, 302 Ill. 471, 134 N.E. 923; People v. Kroll, 259 Ill. 592, 102 N.E. 1080. It should be stated that we find the indictment to be proper as to form and content.
The next assignments of error center around the assertion in defendant's beief that the 'Court exceeded it's jurisdiction by accepting Plea of Guilty from (illiterate) defendant who attempted to defend self.' Such a theory overlooks, of course, that the court set aside the proceedings at which defendant attempted to defend himself and ultimately accepted the plea of guilty entered while he was attended by counsel. In so doing we do not find either that the court exceeded its jurisdiction or that it committed an abuse of discretion. A strict requirement of our law is that, in each conviction of a crime upon a plea of guilty, the record must show that before the entry of the plea the court fully explained its consequences to the defendant and that the explanation was understandingly received. Ill.Rev.Stat.1951, chap. 38, par. 732; People v. Washington, 5 Ill.2d 58, 124 N.E.2d 890. The object of the rule is to give the defendant the right to withdraw the plea of guilty if, after hearing the consequences of such plea, he desires to be tried by a jury. People v. Wilke, 390 Ill. 598, 62 N.E.2d 468. In the record before us the explanation and admonition of the court, given upon two occasions, is a model of thoroughness, and the defendant's replies on both occasions demonstrate that his plea was knowingly and understandingly made and persisted in. We find no basis to now say that his plea should not have been accepted.
To further sustain his prayer for a reversal of the judgment, defendant suggests that he was, by reason of intoxication, incapable of forming the specific intent requisite to the crime of murder. See: People v. Klemann, 383 Ill. 236, 48 N.E.2d 957. Apart from the fact that...
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