People v. Hopkins
| Decision Date | 23 March 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 32645,32645 |
| Citation | 415 Ill. 11,111 N.E.2d 587 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. HOPKINS. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
William C. Jerome and Stanley H. Richards, both of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.
Ivan A. Elliott Atty. Gen., and Frank W. Curran, State's Atty., Kankakee (Edward P. Drolet, Kankakee, and Harry L. Pate, Tuscola, of counsel), for the People
On February 18, 1935, the defendant, Jules Hopkins, was indicted in the circuit court of Kankakee County for murder. His motion to quash the indictment was overruled, and he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for ninety-nine years. The case is here on writ of error.
The only contention made by defendant is that his motion to quash the indictment should have been allowed. The motion charged (1) that the grand jury which returned the indictment was not selected propertionately from each town or precinct in the county as required by statute, and (2) that the foreman of the grand jury was not a legally selected grand juror. A third ground advanced in the motion to quash, that the jurisdiction of the grand jury had terminated before it returned the indictment, was abandoned on oral argument.
The facts are stipulated. On December 22, 1934, the presiding judge of the circuit court of Kankakee County entered an order directing the selection of a grand jury. A resolution of the board of supervisors of the county, adopted on January 8, 1935, selected twenty-three named persons to serve as grand jurors at the January, 1935, term of the circuit court. The population of Kankakee County, according to the Federal census of 1930, was 50,095; the population of Kankakee township was 27,289; there were seventeen townships in the county; one grand juror was selected by the board of supervisors from each township except Kankakee township, and seven grand jurors were selected from Kankakee township. The name of the twenty-third person selected was listed as 'E. E. Whimsett' of Kankakee. The sheriff made a return on the summons showing E. E. Whimsett 'not found.' On January 26, 1935, Dr. George E. Irwin, supervisor of Kankakee township, where G. C. Whimsett resided, changed the name 'E. E. Whimsett' on the resolution of January 8 to 'G. C. Whimsett.' At the request of the county clerk and Dr. Irwin, the circuit clerk took the original summons to the sheriff's office, delivered it to a deputy sheriff, and informed him that the supervisor of Kankakee township had requested that G. C. Whimsett be served as a grand juror. The name 'E. E. Whimsett' was changed to 'G. C. Whimsett' on the grand jury summons in the sheriff's office. On the same day, January 26, 1935, G. C. Whimsett was served with a grand jury summons. Thereafter, he was appointed foreman of the grand jury and served in that capacity when the challenged indictment was returned. The supervisor of Kankakee township testified that he knew of only one Whimsett, the Rev. G. C. Whimsett who actually served on the grand jury, and that when he wrote the name E. E. Whimsett on the resolution passed by the board of supervisors on January 8, 1935, he had in mind and intended to indicate G. C. Whimsett.
To the extent relevant, section 9 of the Jurors Act, in force in February, 1935 (Ill.Rev.Stat. 1935, chap. 78, par. 9), when this indictment was returned, provided for the selection of twenty-three persons, possessing the qualifications prescribed by section 2, 'and as near as may be a proportionate number from each town or precinct in their respective counties,' to serve as grand jurors. It also provided, 'If for any reason the panel of grand jurors shall not be full * * * the judge shall direct the sheriff to summon from the body of the county a sufficient number of persons having the qualifications of jurors, as provided by this Act, to fill the panel'.
Defendant contends that compliance with the statutory provision that a proportionate number of grand jurors should be selected 'from each town or precinct' required that at least one half of the grand jury should have been selected from Kankakee township. In support of that contention he cites Miller v. People, 183 Ill. 423, 56 N.E. 60; People v. Boston, 309 Ill. 77, 139 N.E. 880, and People v. Green, 329 Ill. 576, 161 N.E. 83. The first and the last of these cases involved grand juries for city courts which were selected from among the residents of the particular city, to the exclusion of residents of the other townships in the county. The factual situations there involved obviously differ widely from that here presented. In People v. Boston, 309 Ill. 77, 139 N.E. 880, 881, numerous grounds were urged in support of a challenge to the array of petit jurors. This...
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People v. Whitlock
...motion to quash the indictment absent a showing of prejudice. Mack, 6 Ill.App.3d at 654, 285 N.E.2d at 596. In People v. Hopkins (1953), 415 Ill. 11, 111 N.E.2d 587, defendant, relying on Mack, argued on appeal that the trial court improperly denied his motion to quash his grand jury indict......