People v. Nastasio

• Decision Date: 18 May 1960
• Docket Number: No. 35462,35462
• Citation: 168 N.E.2d 728,19 Ill.2d 524
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Joseph NASTASIO, alias Anthony Noletti, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 728

168 N.E.2d 728

19 Ill.2d 524

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Joseph NASTASIO, alias Anthony Noletti, Appellant.

No. 35462.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 18, 1960.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 12, 1900.

Robert Weiner, Springfield, for appellant.

Grenville Beardsley, Atty. Gen., and J. Waldo Ackerman, Jr., State's Atty., Springfield (Fred G. Leach, Asst. Atty. Gen., John E. Howarth and J. Calvin Bostian, Asst. State's Attys., Springfield, of counsel), for appellee.

SCHAEFER, Justice.

After hearing many witnesses, the Sangamon County grand jury refused to indict the defendant, Joseph Nastasio, for murder. It did, however, return indictments charging him with various sex offenses. Instead of prosecuting the criminal charges, the State's Attorney filed a petition in the circuit court of Sangamon County under the Sexually Dangerous Persons Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1959, chap. 38, par. 820.01-825e), alleging the defendant to be a sexually dangerous person within the meaning of the act, and praying for a hearing to determine that issue. A jury found the defendant to be a sexually dangerous person and the court entered judgment committing him to the custody of the Director of Public Safety for confinement and treatment. The defendant appeals directly to this court.

Jurisdiction of appeals in these cases is governed by the Civil Practice Act. Ill.Rev.Stat.1959, chap. 38, par. 822.01; chap. 110, par. 75. It is defendant's position that this court, rather than the Appellate Court, has jurisdiction because the admission in evidence of two depositions taken in the defendant's absence violated section 9 of article II of the Illinois constitution, S.H.A. That section provides: 'In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to appear and defend in person and * * * to meet the witnesses face to face.' Ill.Const., art. II, sec. 9.

The People's challenge of our jurisdiction rests first upon the assertion that it does not appear that the constitutional objection was raised and passed upon in the trial court. The defendant first presented his objection in opposition to the People's motion to take depositions. The objection was overruled. The defendant preserved the question in his motions to suppress the depositions, and for judgment n.o.v. and for a new trial. Although the abstract does not contain the trial court's rulings on these motions, the court could not have denied them without ruling adversely on the defendant's constitutional claim. We find, therefore, that the constitutional challenge to the depositions was properly raised and passed upon in the court below.

The People also contend that the admission of the depositions in evidence presented only a question of practice which is not of constitutional dimension. It is true that jurisdiction on direct appeal has regularly been denied when the only aserted basis was that alleged errors in trial practice and procedure deprived the appellant of due process of law. E. g., Biggs v. Plebanek, 407 Ill. 562, 95 N.E.2d 870; People v. Jiras, 340 Ill. 208, 211-212, 172 N.E. 47. Such errors in the application of procedural rules are rarely, if ever, sufficiently serious to deprive the appellant of a fair judicial hearing, which is the essence of procedural due process. They are therefore regarded as matters of practice reviewable in the Appellate Court. The case now before us, however, involves the alleged violation of a constitutional command which regulates specific aspects of judicial procedure. The question of constitutional construction here raised is similar to that involved when a defendant in a criminal case seeks to suppress evidence allegedly seized in an unreasonable search. We have recently reaffirmed that such cases present constitutional questions reviewable on direct appeal to this court. People v. Watkins, 19 Ill.2d 11, 166 N.E.2d 433.

We conclude that the cause is properly here on direct appeal because it involves a debatable constitutional question raised and passed upon in the trial court. That we find it unnecessary to reach the constitutional issue in our decision on the merits does not affect the existence of the constitutional question and does not defeat our jurisdiction. City of Detroit v. Gould, 12 Ill.2d 297, 146 N.E.2d 61; People v. Metcoff, 392 Ill. 418, 64 N.E.2d 867.

To sustain the use of depositions in this case, the People emphasize the civil nature of proceedings under the Sexually Dangerous Persons Act, and point out that 'the authority to use depositions in a civil case is of course unquestioned.' Section 3.01 of the act provides: 'The proceedings under this Act shall be civil in nature. The provisions of the Civil Practice Act including the provisions for appeal, and all existing and future amendments of said Act and modifications thereof and the rules now or hereafter adopted pursuant to said Act shall apply to all proceedings hereunder except as otherwise provided in this Act.' Ill.Rev.Stat.1959, chap. 38, par. 822.01.

Despite this legislative direction that proceedings under the act shall be civil and that the Civil Practice Act shall apply, the proceedings in fact closely resemble criminal prosecutions in many critical respects. A hearing may be had only after the defendant is charged with a criminal offense, evidence of crimes may be introduced at the trial, and an adverse verdict subjects the defendant to indefinite incarceration. Ill.Rev.Stat.1959, chap. 38, pars. 822, 824, 825a. This court had these similarities in mind when it held that admission in evidence of statements in the nature of confessions, without preliminary proof of their voluntary character, violates due process of law in commitment proceedings under the act as well as in trials for criminal offenses. People v. Capoldi, 10 Ill.2d 261, 139 N.E.2d 776.

Similar considerations are operative here. Many decisions suggest that difficult constitutional issues would be raised by the use of depositions in proceedings which so closely resemble criminal prosecutions. Tucker v. People, 122 Ill. 583, 593, 13 N.E. 809; Gillespie v. People, 176 Ill. 238, 243-244, 52 N.E. 250; People v. Crump, 5 Ill.2d 251, 267-268, 125 N.E.2d 615, 52 A.L.R.2d 834. The General Assembly has not specifically directed that depositions may be used in these proceedings, and it is questionable that by the broad language which it employed it intended to adopt procedures of doubtful validity under the constitution. It is our duty so to interpret the statute as to promote its essential purposes and to avoid, if possible, a construction that would raise doubts as to its validity. Both ends will be served by holding, as we do, that while the general structure of the Civil Practice Act has...