People v. Scott
| Decision Date | 22 June 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 17966.,17966. |
| Citation | 157 N.E. 247,326 Ill. 327 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. SCOTT. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Marcus Kavanagh, Judge.
Russell T. Scott was convicted of murder, and thereafter adjudged insane, and committed to the state hospital for criminal insane, and, to review proceedings in which he was found to have recovered sanity and was ordered executed, he brings error.
Reversed and remanded.Wm. Scott Stewart, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.
Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., Robert E. Crowe, State's Atty., of Chicago, and Merrill F. Wehmhoff, of Decatur (George E. Gorman, Edward E. Wilson, and Clarence E. Nelson, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.
Plaintiff in error, Russell T. Scott (hereinafter referred to as the defendant), was tried and found guilty by a jury in the criminal court of Cook county of the murder of Joseph M. Maurer. The jury by its verdict fixed the punishment at death, and the court, on February 14, 1925, entered judgment and sentence that he be hanged by the neck until dead, between the hours of sunrise and sunset on April 17, 1925. Thereafter a writ of error for the review of the judgment was by this court denied. The Governor postponed the day of execution until July 24, 1925. On that day Thomas H. Scott, father of the defendant, filed his verified petition in said court alleging that the defendant had become lunatic and insane since the judgment was entered against him, and was then incapable of realizing or comprehending the fact that he was under sentence of death, prayed that the execution of the death sentence be stayed, and that a jury be impaneled, as provided by the statute, to determine the question whether or not the defendant had become lunatic or insane since the judgment and sentence of death had been entered against him. The criminal court thereupon entered an order staying the execution of the judgment and sentence, and impaneled a jury, as provided by section 13 of division 2 of the Criminal Code (Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1925, c. 38, § 593) to determine the question whether or not the defendant had become lunatic or insane since the judgment and sentence of death had been entered. The jury in that proceeding found by their verdict that the defendant had become lunatic or insane since February 14, 1925, and that at the time of the impaneling of the jury he was lunatic or insane. The criminal court thereupon entered judgment on the verdict, finding that the defendant had become lunatic or insane since February 14, 1925, and that he was at the time of the impaneling of the jury lunatic or insane, and ordered that he be taken by the sheriff of Cook county to the asylum for the criminal insane at Chester, there to be confined in accordance with the statute until he recovered from such lunacy or insanity, at which time he should be returned to the custody of the sheriff of Cook county, and immediately thereafter be brought before the bar of that court to be then and there sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead, at some time to be fixed by the court, in accordance with the original judgment entered against him on February 14, 1925. The court further ordered that the judgment and sentence of death against the defendant be stayed until his recovery from such lunacy or insanity. The defendant was in accordance with that judgment delivered by the sheriff of Cook county to the asylum for the criminal insane at Chester, and there remained until May 25, 1926. In May, 1926, during the time the defendant was in the asylum, Dr. Herman M. Adler, the state criminologist, Dr. Ralph Hinton, superintendent of the State Hospital at Elgin, and Dr. Frank Stubblefield, superintendent of the asylum for the criminal insane at Chester, were ordered by Chauncey Jenkins, director of the department of public welfare, to examine the defendant, and were given a report already prepared for them to sign after they had made their examination. Those doctors proceeded to the asylum, examined the defendant, and signed the report on May 18, 1926, which is to the effect that, having been directed to examine Russell T. Scott, who was then confined in the asylum for criminal insane, they ‘find that the said Russell T. Scott has recovered from his insanity or lunacy.’
On May 22, 1926, the Attorney General of Illinois and the state's attorney of Cook county filed a petition, verified by affidavit, in the criminal court of Cook county for a writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum. The petition alleged that petitioners were in receipt of a report of three doctors, Adler, Hinton, and Stubblefield, which was copied in the petition, setting forth that the defendant had recovered from his insanity or lunacy. The record does not disclose that the doctors' report was ever verified by the affidavitof any one of the three doctors. The petition also alleged that there was no legal reason why the sentence of death theretofore entered against him should not be executed. The writ was awarded, and, in pursuance thereof, the defendant was produced before the criminal court of Cook county, and was ordered by the court into the custody of the sheriff. On the same day the defendant was again brought before the court, and William Scott Stewart was appointed as his attorney. The attorney then appeared specially for the defendant, and objected to the jurisdiction of the court, but his motion was overruled. The court also overruled the motion of the attorney to remove the defendant from the custody of the sheriff. The Attorney General and the state's attorney petitioned the court to vacate the order staying the execution of the sentence theretofore entered by the court and to set a definite date for the carrying out of the sentence of death against the defendant. This petition was not verified by the affidavit of any one, and no evidence aliunde the petition was presented to the court as a basis for a trial by jury to try the question as to whether or not the defendant was sane. The petition set out no facts showing that the defendant was then sane or had recovered his sanity. However, it did recite that they were in receipt of the unsworn report of the three doctors heretofore mentioned, and the allegations were substantially the same as those contained in the petition for habeas corpus. The defendant, by his attorney, objected to the court taking jurisdiction and inquiring into the question whether or not the defendant had recovered from his insanity or lunacy. The hearing on the petition of the Attorney General and the state's attorney was assigned to Judge Marcus Kavanagh, one of the superior court judges of Cook county and ex officio judge of the criminal court of Cook county. The attorney for the defendant then filed a motion before the court requesting that he be appointed as guardian ad litem for the defendant. The court denied this motion, and then, over the objection of the defendant's attorney, appointed a deputy clerk of the criminal court, who was the minute clerk of that court, as guardian ad litem for the defendant. A petition for a change of venue from Judge Kavanagh was prepared for the defendant by his attorney and presented to the guardian ad litem for his signature and verification. The guardian ad litem refused to sign and verify the petition, and thereafter a petition for a change of venue was filed by the attorney for the defendant, which was verified by the defendant and supported by the affidavits of two other persons. It was set out in the petition for a change of venue, as grounds therefor, that the judge was prejudiced against the defendant, and that the knowledge of the prejudice of the judge did not come to the defendant until the judge appointed his own minute clerk as guardian ad litem for the defendant and the guardian ad litem refused to sign the petition for a change of venue. The petition further set forth that the judge was a party interested in the proceedings. The court denied the motion for a change of venue. Thereafter a jury was impaneled and evidence was heard before the court and jury on the question whether or not the defendant had recovered from his lunacy or insanity. The jury found that the defendant was sane at the time of the impaneling of the jury. The court overruled a motion for a new trial, and entered a final order in this language: ‘It is ordered that the date of execution be and the same is hereby set for the fifteenth day of October, A. D. 1926, between sunrise and sunset,’ to which order of the court the defendant by his counsel then and there excepted. The defendant was allowed 60 days in which to file his bill of exceptions. The record is brought to this court for review on a writ of error which was made a supersedeas.
On the trial of the defendant on the question whether or not he was lunatic or insane at the time of the impaneling of the jury, three doctors who had examined him testified,in substance, for the state that he was sane. They based their testimony upon conversations with the defendant on May 17 and 18, 1926, and their ocular inspection of him at those times. They made no physical examination of him whatever, and requested of the defendant no such examination. Two of these doctors, Stubblefield and Hinton, were the same doctors who had signed the report to the department of public welfare on May 18, 1926. The other witness was Dr. Paul Schroeder, an assistaint to Dr. Adler, the state criminologist. Dr. Hinton had never seen the defendant but once previous to that examination, which was at the time of his former trial for insanity, which was a short time after February 14, 1925. He was a witness in that first trial, but only testified in answer to hypothetical questions, as he had never examined the defendant. Dr. Stubblefield had observed and talked with the defendant from time to time while he was in the insane asylum at Chester. Dr. Schroeder made a physical and mental examination of def...
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