People v. Munroe

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: KLINGBIEL
• Citation: People v. Munroe, 15 Ill.2d 91, 154 N.E.2d 225 (Ill. 1958)
• Decision Date: 26 November 1958
• Docket Number: No. 34135,34135
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Roland MUNROE, Jr., Plaintiff in Error.

Page 225

154 N.E.2d 225

15 Ill.2d 91

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Roland MUNROE, Jr., Plaintiff in Error.

No. 34135.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 26, 1958.

Prentice H. Marshall, Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Latham Castle, Atty. Gen., and Benjamin S. Adamowski, State's Atty., Chicago (Francis X. Riley and Edwin A. Strugala, Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

KLINGBIEL, Justice.

In 1936 the plaintiff in error, Roland Munroe, Jr., fifteen years of age, was indicted and tried by jury in the criminal court of Cook County for the crime of murder. His defense was that he was insane at the time he committed the act with which he was charged. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on October 21, 1936, and fixed his punishment at 199 years in the penitentiary. On November 19, 1936, after denial of his post-trial motions, judgment was entered on the verdict and sentence was imposed. Appearing pro se, he thereafter obtained a timely issuance of a writ of error to review the conviction on the basis of the common-law record only. This court then appointed counsel to represent him. Thereafter counsel obtained a transcript of the trial proceedings under Rule 65-1 of this court (Ill.Rev.Stat.1957, chap. 110, par. 101.65-1); and on February 11, 1958, while the original writ of error was pending, an application was filed in this court for a writ of error under Rule 65-1. At the May, 1958, term this court granted the application and ordered the two causes consolidated. To reverse the conviction plaintiff in error, hereinafter called defendant, contends that the court erred in instructing the jury and that improper and prejudicial remarks were made by the prosecutor in his closing argument.

At the outset it is necessary to consider a motion by the State in the nature of a plea of limitations. It is argued that the second writ of error, allowed upon the petition under Rule 65-1, is barred and should be quashed because issued more than twenty years after defendant's conviction; that the bill of exceptions is therefore not properly before the court; and that the alleged errors in the giving of instructions and the making of prejudicial arguments to the jury cannot be considered.

It is well settled that the common-law limitation of 20 years applies to writs of error in criminal cases. People v. Hartfield, 11 Ill.2d 300, 142 N.E.2d 696. Where it appears upon the face of the record that a writ of error is issued more than 20 years after the entry of the judgment, a plea of limitation filed by the defendant in error will be sustained. People v. Chapman, 392 Ill. 168, 64 N.E.2d 529. In the case at bar, however, the writ of error was first sued out by defendant before expiration of such period, and has not since been dismissed or otherwise disposed of. The transcript of the trial proceedings obtained pursuant to Rule 65-1 is an additional record, reviewable by the original writ of error, as well as by the writ of error granted on the petition filed under Rule 65-1.

People v. Hartfield, 11 Ill.2d 300, 142 N.E.2d 696, 697, relied upon by the State, is distinguishable. In that case the plaintiff in error contended the limitation was inapplicable because a former writ of error, dismissed prior to suing out the writ of error in question, was within the 20-year period. In rejecting the contention this court said 'His first writ of error was dismissed and the present writ of error is in no sense a continuation of the first one, but is an entirely separate proceeding.' In the case at bar the writ of error, originally sued out within the 20-year period, was pending when petition for writ of error under Rule 65-1 was granted. It follows that the plea of limitation must be denied.

The evidence discloses that at seven o'clock on the night of Saturday, August 29, 1936, the defendant, a fifteen-year-old Chicago newspaper boy, called at the apartment of one Agnes Roffies, 66 years of age, to collect his weekly payment for newspapers. It was a hot night and Mrs. Roffies invited defendant into her home for a cold drink. They sat in her living room taking the drink together and visiting. At about 7:30 a grocery delivery boy called at Mrs. Roffies' apartment, with her weekly delivery of food stuffs. The defendant answered the grocery boy's call at the door. After the grocery boy had gone Mrs. Roffies asked the defendant if he would straighten a back-door key which she had bent. He agreed to do so and she gave him a small tack hammer with which he straightened the key by pounding it on a kitchen table. Then defendant returned to the living room, carrying the hammer with him.

From his position in the living room he saw Mrs. Roffies place a box on the dining room table. He knew, from a conversation with her a week earlier, that the box contained some feminine trinkets, jewelry, buttons and old gold of little or no value. She then entered the living room where defendant was seated. She sat down for a moment opposite him, then rose and walked toward him. As she approached she stumbled and fell, whereupon defendant struck her on the head with the tack hammer. When the handle of the hammer broke, defendant seized Mrs. Roffies' cane and bludgeoned her to death with it. He thereafter went to the dining room and took the box. He left the apartment through the front door, took the jewelry and trinkets to an old gold dealer with whom he left them for safe keeping until morning, returned to his home and went to bed. When the attack occurred the lights were on and the window shades up. Three passers by on the darkened street outside heard Mrs. Roffies scream and observed defendant in the act of striking her. Before morning he was arrested at his home and shortly thereafter admitted the killing.

Evidence on the issue of insanity reveals that from infancy defendant had been highly nervous and unstable. He was afflicted with a nervous disorder known as St. Vitus Dance, and at the age of three was taken to a psychiatrist who advised the father that the boy was not right mentally. He was then given treatment for about a year. At six years of age he was taken to a psychoanalyst at the University of Minnesota Child Clinic. His mother, who died when he was about twelve years old, fancied herself a spiritualist and believed she was going to become a great medium. She heard voices and gazed into a crystal ball. Defendant did not associate with other children, and from the time of his birth displayed extreme antisocial tendencies. When he was thirteen years of age he had become a confirmed homosexual. The men with whom he engaged in homosexual practices paid him for his consent, and he devoted the money to purchases of perfume and feminine jewelry. Shortly before the attack on Mrs. Roffies, the defendant had been taken to the Institute of Juvenile Research, where he was examined as an emergency case.

Defendant's father testified that the only time he could remember his son crying was an occasion when he lost a card game with his parents; that he then went into a frenzy and cried continuously for fifteen minutes; that the boy would spend all his money on feminine trinkets which he valued highly; that he was always putting curls in his hair and primping himself; that at every opportunity he would obtain bottles of perfume which he would conceal about the house and that at the time of his arrest there were about ten bottles of it hidden in his room. On the basis of his observations of such abnormal behavior the witness expressed the opinion that his son was insane on and prior to August 29, 1936.

An osteopath and chiropractor testified that he had formerly been a nurse in an insane asylum and had frequent contact with the patients; that he first met defendant in the spring of 1936, when the latter began attending Sunday School classes conducted by the witness; that he had occasion to see defendant many times during the following three months, and observed peculiar behavior on his part; that defendant would never answer questioins directly but would talk about unrelated and nonsensical things; and that in the opinion of the witness, based upon his observations of defend...