People v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 13 March 1946
• Docket Number: No. 28593.,28593.
• Citation: 392 Ill. 589,65 N.E.2d 362
• Parties: PEOPLE v. THOMPSON.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

392 Ill. 589

65 N.E.2d 362

PEOPLE

v.THOMPSON.

No. 28593.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 23, 1946.

Rehearing Denier March 13, 1946.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Philip J. Finnegan, judge.

Coy Thompson was convicted of murder and he brings error.

Writ dismissed.

Coy Thompson, pro se.

George F. Barrett, Atty. Gen., and William J. Tuohy, State's Atty., of Chicago (Edward E. Wilson, John T. Gallagher, Melvin S. Rembe, and Joseph A. Pope, all of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.

GUNN, Justice.

Plaintiff in error, Coy Thompson, hereinafter referred to as defendant, seeks the reversal of a conviction for murder in the criminal court of Cook county on July 6, 1931. He alleges error in contending he was denied due process of law. The defendant in error has made a motion to dismiss the writ of error upon the ground that defendant has heretofore prosecuted a writ of error to this court, in which the judgment of conviction in the trial court was affirmed, as shown in the case of People v. Thompson, 381 Ill. 71, 44 N.E.2d 876.

It is true the same points are not argued in this case that were argued in the former case, but that does not prevent the first writ of error constituting res judicata of all questions which could have been raised in the first case. A writ of error is a new case. In such proceeding it was possible to review and decide every error claimed to have been committed by the trial court. When we affirmed the trial court we decided every issue that could have properly been raised upon the record. The rule with respect to the binding effect of a judgment between the same parties upon the same claim or demand is that the judgment is conclusive not only as to every matter offered to sustain or defeat the claim or demand, but as to any other matter which might have been offered for that purpose. Harding Co. v. Harding, 352 Ill. 417, 186 N.E. 152, 88 A.L.R. 563;Barry v. Commonwealth Edison Co. 374 Ill. 473, 29 N.E.2d 1014;People ex rel. Adams v. McKibben, 377 Ill. 22, 35 N.E.2d 321.

This rule applies to writs of error. In Pollock v. Cohen, 32 Ohio St. 514, a case frequently cited, it is said: ‘It is well settled by authority, and is a doctrine sound in principle, that all questions which existed on the record, and could have been considered on the first petition in error, must ever afterward be treated as settled by the first adjudication of the reviewing court. The time should come, in the history of a cause, when litigation must end. If the failing party was allowed to prosecute a new petition in error, on the same record, whenever he imagined he had discovered a new ground of error not previously assigned, litigation would be interminable. Such practice would violate well-settled principles of law and be against public policy. (Citations.)’

The same principle is decided in Roberts v. Cooper, 20 How., U.S., 467, 15 L.Ed. 969; also, Missouri Pacific Railway Co. v. Larabee Flour Mills Co. 241 U.S. 649, 36 S.Ct. 552, 60 L.Ed. 1220. The principle has been adopted in criminal cases. In People ex rel. Stead v. Superior Court, 234 Ill. 186, 84 N.E. 875, 877,14 Ann.Cas. 753, after a conviction had been affirmed on writ of error by this court, a writ of habeas corpus was allowed by the superior court and an order discharging the prisoner made because of the insufficiency of the verdict. The case was brought to this court by certiorari on ground of...