People v. Rucker

• Decision Date: 27 October 1936
• Docket Number: No. 23539.,23539.
• Citation: People v. Rucker, 364 Ill. 371, 4 N.E.2d 492 (Ill. 1936)
• Parties: PEOPLE v. RUCKER.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

364 Ill. 371

4 N.E.2d 492

PEOPLE

v.RUCKER.

No. 23539.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 27, 1936.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Benjamin P. Epstein, Judge.

Kennety Rucker was convicted of murder and he brings error.

Affirmed.John E. Taylor and Harold F. Ronin, both of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Otto Kerner, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and A. B. Dennis, of Danville (Edward E. Wilson, John T. Gallagher, Richard H. Devine, and Melvin Rembe, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

HERRICK, Chief Justice.

The defendant, Kenneth Rucker, in the criminal court of Cook county, was found guilty of murder on a trial before a jury and by their verdict his punishment was fixed at confinement in the penitentiary for 199 years. Judgment was entered in accordance with the verdict. By this writ of error he seeks to have the judgment of the trial court declared to be, in effect, a life sentence rather than for a term of years, in order that the provisions of the Parole Act, § 1 (Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 38, § 801, Ill.Rev.Stat.1935, ch. 38, p. 1259, par. 795) relative to life imprisonment may become applicable to his sentence.

Different reasons are assigned by the defendant in support of his position. They may be summarized in (1) a jury cannot fix imprisonment for a period longer than life, and (2) by the verdict returned the jury had imposed a punishment at such term of years as would defeat the provisions of the Parole Act (Smith-Hurd Ill. Stats. c. 38, § 801 et seq.).

To sustain his claims the defendant cites People v. Elliott, 272 Ill. 592, 112 N.E. 300, 305, Ann.Cas.1918B, 391, and People v. Heffernan, 312 Ill. 66, 143 N.E. 411. The Elliott Case was a prosecution for a violation under a then statute which prohibited the sale of intoxicating liquor in antisaloon territory. The defendants were found guilty on the first seventy counts of the indictment, which charged unlawful sales, and the seventy-first count, for keeping a place where intoxicating liquor was unlawfully sold. They were sentenced to pay a fine and to imprisonment for 10 days in the county jail on each of the first seventy counts and 20 days on the seventy-first count, making a total of 720 days, the jail sentences to run consecutively. This court held the form of judgment was incorrect and remanded the cause, with leave to the state's attorney to move for, and directions to the trial court to enter, a judgment in accordance with the rule established by this court that ‘the correct method of entering judgment is not for the total time in gross, but for a specified time under each count, the time under the second to commence when the first ends, and so on to the last.’ We there held that the punishment, aggregating 720 days, was not disproportionate to the offense committed; that the Legislature had the authority to determine what acts should constitute a crime and the punishment to be imposed for the commission thereof. That case does not sustain any theory of the defendant's cause.

In the Heffernan Case, supra, the defendants were found guilty of murder. Heffernan's punishment was fixed at death and his codefendant's at imprisonment for life. In that case Mr. Justice Duncan, speaking for the court, said, 312 Ill. 66, at page 71, 143 N.E. 411, 413: ‘In this state our statute recognizes no degrees in the crime of murder. The punishment for murder is imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of years not less than 14, and such punishment may extend to life imprisonment, or the punishment may be death. The jury in every instance, not only passes upon the question of the guilt of a defendant charged with murder, but are the sole judges of the turpitude of the crime and the proper punishment therefor within the above limits.’ The defendant argues that from this quoted portion of the opinion this court has held that a sentence which lays upon a defendant a penalty in years extending beyond the life of the average man is not warranted and must be held to be a sentence for life. We are not in accord with that construction of the opinion in the Heffernan Case and in our judgment such is not a correct interpretation thereof. The statute governing the punishment for murder (Criminal Code § 142, Smith-Hurd Ill.Stats. c. 38, § 360, Ill.Rev.Stat.1935, ch. 38, p. 1200, par. 339) provides that ‘whoever is guilty of murder, shall suffer the punishment of death, or imprisonment in the...