People v. Reeves

• Decision Date: 17 September 1952
• Docket Number: No. 32281,32281
• Citation: 412 Ill. 555,107 N.E.2d 861
• Parties: PEOPLE v. REEVES.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 861

107 N.E.2d 861

412 Ill. 555

PEOPLE v. REEVES.

No. 32281.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Sept. 17, 1952.

Edward I. Rothschild, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Ivan A. Elliott, Atty. Gen., and John S. Boyle, State's Attorney, of Chicago, William C. Wines, Chicago (John T. Gallagher, Rudolph L. Janega, Arthur Manning, and William J. McGah, Jr., all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

CRAMPTON, Chief Justice.

Plaintiff in error, Andrew Reeves, Jr., filed a petition under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1951, chap. 38, par. 826) seeking review of a conviction of murder for which he received a sentence of ninety-nine years. The People filed a motion to dismiss the petition, which was allowed, and we granted a writ of error to the criminal court of Cook County.

Plaintiff in error was indicted for murder by the grand jury on October 14, 1943. Before trial, he was found insane by the behavior clinic of the criminal court and was thereafter found insane by a jury and committed to the Illinois Security Hospital at Menard. On March 31, 1944, he was returned to the jurisdiction of the Cook County criminal court, the case was reinstated, and further examination was ordered to be made by the behavior clinic. On April 21, 1944, a petition was filed by an assistant public defender stating the defendant had 'recovered from said insanity to the degree that he can now co-operate with his counsel and can enter a plea,' etc. On the same day a jury was empaneled to determine whether Reeves had recovered his sanity, and the court, relying upon said stipulation, instructed the jury to return a finding of sanity.

At the conclusion of these proceedings, other counsel was appointed by the court to represent Reeves and after several continuances he was found guilty by a jury on May 31, 1944, and sentenced to ninety-nine years. The trial jury made no finding that Reeves was sane at the time of the commission of the murder. Several years later, in November, 1950, Reeves filed his petition under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act alleging substantial constitutional rights had been violated. Upon a hearing in the criminal court of Cook County pursuant to a form motion filed by the State's Attorney, the petition was dismissed on March 8, 1951. The case is here on revised petition for writ of error filed November 29, 1951, which we granted, a prior petition for writ of error having been withdrawn with leave of this court and without prejudice. Upon the granting of the writ of error we deemed it essential to appoint counsel other than the trial court appointed counsel and it was so ordered. These facts are all substantially admitted by the record and the People.

Plaintiff in error contends due process and equal protection of the law were denied him because (a) he was tried for murder while insane and the jury never passed upon the question of his sanity at the time of the murder or upon his purported restoration, the latter having been upon the stipulation of the assistant public defender, and the court, by directing a verdict, withdrew from the jury the issue to be tried; (b) he was compelled to testify against himself at the murder trial by the introduction in evidence of a confession obtained while insane; and (c) he was not afforded competent counsel for his defense at a trial charging a capital offense. The grounds for this latter charge are that his counsel failed to confer with him at all and prepared no defense; that counsel made no objections whatsoever during the trial, either as to the admissibility of the confession, the introduction of evidence, or the statements of the State's Attorney concerning a prior conviction; and that his attorney failed to present and place before the jury at the murder trial the defense of insanity, in the face of his adjudication of insanity, which had continued to within a recent date before his trial despite the purported restoration, which he now disavows.

The People contend the issue of insanity was presented to the murder trial jury and the issues are res adjudicata; that the petition states mere conclusions and that, other than the sworn petition, there were no affidavits or documents attached to the petition as required by the statute, Rule 27B of this court, Ill.Rev.Stat.1951, c. 110, § 259.27B, and our recent holding in the case of People v. Jennings, 411 Ill. 21, 102 N.E.2d 824; and that the facts alleged, if admitted to be true, do not constitute or show a substantial violation of constitutional rights. The People have filed a supplemental abstract which sets forth a petition for allowance of attorney's fees, as allowed by statute in a capital case, which indicates counsel appointed by the trial court interviewed the defendant on eight different occasions and enumerates in some detail the preparation made for, and the work done at, the trial. This, of course, raises an issue of fact not triable by this court and would be proper only upon the hearing contemplated by the Post-Conviction Hearing Act before the trial court and should be raised by answer rather than by motion to dismiss, assuming substantial constitutional questions are raised, which, we think, is the case here.

People v. Jennings, 411 Ill. 21, 102 N.E.2d 824, disposes of most of the questions in this case. Res adjudicata cannot be mechanically applied to foreclose an inquiry which probes beneath the mere fact of adjudication to determine whether or not, in the process of adjudication, there has been any infringement of the constitutional rights of the petitioner. Although the record shows there were some instructions on the defense of insanity presented at the murder trial, most of which were tendered by the defendant and were refused, we are unable to determine from the ruling on the motion whether petitioner's claims were presented or waived and, if raised, whether those claims were fairly decided. It is true, we held in the Jennings case, that the trial court should determine whether the petition is supported by accompanying affidavits and if not, whether the absence of such affidavits is sufficiently explained and excused by petitioner's own sworn statements. It is also the fact that the record presented is meager, to say the least, but we think the absence of accompanying affidavits may readily be sufficiently and adequately explained and excused where defects and violations of constitutional rights are raised by fair inference from the sworn statements of a petitioner and where they are substantially borne out by matters appearing on the face of the record. The requirement for such accompanying affidavits is necessitated by the need to furnish information dehors the available record or to require at the hearing an adequate search of those parts of the record not then in the hands of or available to the petitioner. We should not construe the statute and our own rules so strictly that a fair hearing be denied and the purposes of the act defeated. However, we do not intend hereby to lessen the duty of petitioners under the act to make a substantial showing of a violation of constitutional rights, for the allegation of a mere conclusion to that effect under oath will not suffice. Assuming for the moment that constitutional questions are substantial and properly raised, we hold the showing made here by petitioner, and as supported by the record itself, is sufficient to invoke the act.

The one serious and real issue in the case at bar is whether, under all the facts and...