People v. Carpenter
| Decision Date | 20 March 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 34611,34611 |
| Citation | 13 Ill.2d 470,150 N.E.2d 100 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois v. Richard Daniel CARPENTER. Irene CARPENTER, Appellant, v. The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Daniel C. Ahern and Kevin J. Gillogly, Chicago, for appellant.
Latham Castle, Atty. Gen., and Benjamin S. Adamowski, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach, Decatur, William H. South, Carmi, Francis X. Riley and John T. Gallagher, Chicago, of counsel), for appellee.
A jury in the criminal court of Cook County found Richard Carpenter guilty of the crime of murder and assessed the death penalty. We affirmed the judgment of conviction which was entered on the jury's verdict. People v. Carpenter, 11 Ill.2d 60, 142 N.E. 11. Following our denial of a petition for rehearing Irene Carpenter, a sister of Richard Carpenter, filed a petition in the trial court alleging that Carpenter had become insane since the judgment and sentence. The court stayed Carpenter's execution and a jury was impaneled to determine the issue of Carpenter's sanity. A hearing was held on this issue and the jury returned a verdict finding that Carpenter was sane. Irene Carpenter has appealed to this court from the verdict and judgment finding Carpenter sane.
The petition which was filed by Irene Carpenter alleged that Carpenter had become insane since the judgment of conviction and the sentence of death and that he was insane at the time of the filing of the petition. The petition prayed for an order directing the warden of the Cook County jail to permit Carpenter's physician to examine him, and following this the State's Attorney moved for an order to permit a physician chosen by the State to examine Carpenter. Both motions were allowed, the State's motion being allowed over the objections of Irene Carpenter. The State's Attorney later moved for an order permitting two additional physicians to examine Carpenter, which motion was allowed over petitioner's objections. Prior to trial the State's Attorney, in his voir dire examination, inquired of each juror as to whether he had religious or conscientious scruples against the death verdict. Petitioner objected to these inquiries but the objection was overruled. One juror was challenged for cause on this ground and the State exercised two of its five peremptory challenges on other grounds. Petitioner did not exercise any of her peremptory challenges. The case proceeded to trial and petitioner called the following witnesses: herself, the assistant warden of the county jail, the captain of the guard of the county jail, the Protestant chaplin of the county jail and the doctor who had examined Carpenter at petitioner's request. The State called the following witnesses: a sergeant of the guard of the county jail, three guards of the county jail, and three physicians who had examined Carpenter at the State's request. At the trial petitioner objected to the testimony of the three medical witnesses who testified for the State but the court overruled her objection. The jury returned a verdict finding that Carpenter was sane. A post-trial motion filed in the trial court assigned as error the fact that the trial judge permitted the State to inquire into the religious and conscientious scruples of the prospective jurors and also that the court erred in ordering the warden of the county jail to permit three psychiatrists to examine Carpenter in behalf of the State over petitioner's objections. It was alleged in that motion that these errors were in violation of the provisions of the Illinois and United State constitutions that no person should be deprived of his life without due process of law. The same errors are assigned on the present appeal.
At the outset we are confronted with a question of whether we have jurisdiction on this appeal. The proceedings in the trial court were commenced and proceeded in accordance with the provisions of section 13 of division II of the Criminal Code (Ill.Rev.Stat.1955, chap. 38, par. 593), which provides as follows:
There is no statutory provision for an appeal from the jury's verdict in such a proceeding, and in the absence of such a provision an appeal normally would not lie, either to this court or to the Appellate Court. However, in People v. Scott, 326 Ill. 327, 157 N.E. 247, and People v. Kadens, 399 Ill. 394, 78 N.E.2d 289, both involving post-sentence insanity hearings, we held that where personal liberties are involved a writ of error lies by force of the common law, in the absence of statute. In those cases we reviewed the proceedings in the trial court to determine whether the defendants had received a fair trial in accordance with the law of the land and held that they had not received such a trial and had consequently been deprived of due process of law. In the instant case we are of the opinion that the assignments of error present fairly debatable constitutional questions and that we, therefore, have jurisdiction. What was said in the Scott and Kadens cases with respect to a writ of error applies with equal force to our jurisdiction by way of appeal.
We consider first the contention that petitioner and Carpenter were deprived of due process of law by reason of the fact that the trial judge permitted the State's Attorney to inquire as to the religious or conscientious scruples of the prospective jurors concerning the death sentence.
It is argued that the effect of such inquiry was to direct the jury's attention to the punishment which Carpenter was to suffer, rather than to the matter of his insanity, which was the sole issue to be determined by the jury, and it is further urged that the necessary effect of the inquiry was to deprive petitioner and Carpenter of a fair and impartial jury, thus depriving them of due process of law. In passing upon this contention, it becomes pertinent to consider the scope of inquiry permitted generally in a voir dire examination. The scope of such inquiry is ordinarily left to the sound discretion of the trial court and reasonable inquiry should be permitted into the matter under investigation. People v. Moretti, 6 Ill.2d 494, 129 N.E.2d 709. Counsel should be permitted to make any reasonable and pertinent search to ascertain whether the minds of the jurors are free from bias and prejudice. People v. Murawski, 2 Ill.2d 143, 117 N.E.2d 88. It remains to be determined whether inquiry as to the scruples of the prospective jurors concerning the death penalty is reasonable and pertinent in this case. Such inquiry is proper in the original trial of a capital case (People v. Winchester, 352 Ill. 237, 185 N.E. 580) and it is provided by statute that in the trial of a capital case it shall be cause for challenge of a juror that he has conscientious scruples against the death penalty. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1955, chap. 38, par. 743.) The present proceeding is a civil case and therefore this statute is not directly applicable. However, for the same reasons that a juror's scruples against the death penalty are grounds for a challenge for cause in the trial of a capital case, such scruples are grounds for challenge here. In a post-sentence sanity hearing the test of insanity is whether the prisoner has sufficient intelligence to understand the nature of the proceedings against him, what he was tried for originally, the purpose of his punishment, the impending fate which awaits him, a sufficient mind to know any facts which might exist which make his punishment unjust or unlawful, and sufficient intelligence to convey such information to his attorney or the court. People v. Geary, 298 Ill. 236, 131 N.E. 652. It follows that since this was the issue before the jury they must necessarily have known that Carpenter had been sentenced to death and that the purpose of the hearing was to determine whether he should be executed. Certainly in the present case as well as in an original trial in a capital case the mental attitude of a prospective juror with respect to capital punishment is relevant and material for the same reason applied in such an original trial. In the trial of the case where capital punishment may be inflicted a juror who has religious or conscientious scruples against capital punishment might hesitate to return a verdict inflicting such punishment, and in the present proceedings a juror having such scruples might likewise hesitate in returning a verdict finding Carpenter sane, which in effect confirms the death sentence. We find no violation of due process of law in the fact that the jurors were...
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Witherspoon v. State of Illinois
...hesitate in returning a verdict finding (the defendant) sane, which in effect confirms the death sentence.' People v. Carpenter, 13 Ill.2d 470, 476, 150 N.E.2d 100, 103. (Emphasis added.) 3. 36 Ill.2d 471, 224 N.E.2d 259. 4. 389 U.S. 1035, 88 S.Ct. 793, 19 L.Ed.2d 822. 5. Unlike the statuto......
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People v. Myers
...psychiatric examination with objective psychological tests. This same argument was presented to us in People v. Carpenter, 13 Ill.2d 470, at pages 480 and 481, 150 N.E.2d 100, at page 106, and rejected, when we stated: 'Petitioner's arguments that permitting the State to have three psychiat......
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Ross v. State
...juror who (in the words of the Illinois Supreme Court) "might hesitate to return a verdict inflicting [death]." People v. Carpenter, 13 Ill.2d 470, 150 N.E.2d 100, 103 (1958). Witherspoon enunciated the principle that it is a denial of due process to exclude from a jury panel prospective ju......
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United States v. Sain
...We have chosen to consider same on the merits. The Illinois Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of sec. 743, People v. Carpenter, 13 Ill.2d 470, 150 N.E.2d 100, cert. den. 358 U.S. 887, 79 S.Ct. 128, 3 L. Ed.2d 115; People v. Winchester, 352 Ill. 237, 185 N.E. 580; Gates v. Peopl......