People v. Varecha
| Decision Date | 22 June 1933 |
| Docket Number | No. 21849.,21849. |
| Citation | 353 Ill. 52,186 N.E. 607 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. VARECHA. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; John Prystalski, Judge.
James Varecha was convicted of murder, and he brings error.
Reversed and remanded.
Darrow, Smith, Cronson & Smith, of Chicago (William W. Smith and Edward M. Keating, both of Chicago, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.
Otto Kerner, Atty. Gen., Thomas J. Courtney, State's Atty., of Chicago, and J. J. Neiger, of Springfield (Edward E. Wilson and
Grenville Beardsley, both of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.
James Varecha was indicted in the criminal court of Cook county for the murder of Frank F. Jordan. He entered a plea of not guilty, but withdrew it and substituted a plea of guilty. The court warned him of the consequences, but he persisted in the latter plea. Evidence of facts in aggravation and in mitigation of the offense was heard, after which judgment was entered and sentence of death pronounced. Varecha prosecutes this writ of error.
The plaintiff in error is seventeen years of age and a son of Charles and Anna Varecha, who reside at 2054 West Fifty-Second street, Chicago. On the evening of November 16, 1932, at about 9:30 o'clock, Frank F. Jordan and Emma Dahnke were sitting in the front seat of an automobile on the east side of Lincoln street about ten feet north of Sixty-Fourth street, in Chicago. A young man, subsequently identified as the plaintiff in error, approached from the rear, opened the door of the automobile on the side where Miss Dahnke was seated, and said, ‘This is a stick-up; put up your hands.’ Miss Dahnke started to give the plaintiff in error her purse. Jordan, about the same time, said, ‘Oh no,’ and manifesting resistance, the plaintiff in error shot him. The bullet struck Jordan about two inches below the top of the right shoulder, passed through the body, and emerged below the left shoulder blade. Jordan alighted from the automobile and started to go around it but fell to the pavement. Miss Dahnke screamed, and the plaintiff in error fled through a passageway between two buildings and disappeared. William E. Grund, a police officer, who resided in the neighborhood, ran first to the street and then toward an alley to capture the assailant. Failing to discover him, Grund returned immediately to Jordan and the police patrol wagon was summoned. Jordan died while lying in the street.
The plaintiff in error was arrested three days after the homicide in a moving picture theater in Chicago. The next day, in the presence of five police officers, two assistant state's attorneys, and a physician associated with the behavior clinic of the criminal court of Cook county, he signed a written statement in which he confessed that he shot Jordan. He claimed, however, that he intended only to shoot him in the shoulder, but that, as he fired, Miss Dahnke raised her purse and struck his arm and, consequently, the course of the bullet was changed and the mortal wound was inflicted.
Prior to the present indictment, a petition was filed in the juvenile court of Cook county in which it was alleged that the plaintiff in error was under the age of seventeen years; that by reason of a charge of robbery laid against him he was a delinquent child and a hearing upon the petition was requested. This petition was dismissed. Subsequently a proceeding was instituted in the same court to have the plaintiff in error declared a feeble minded person. After evidence was heard, the court, on December 21, 1931, adjudged him such a person and ordered him committed to the state hospital for the feeble-minded and epileptic at Dixon. In the order it was recited, ‘and the court hereby retains jurisdiction of this cause for the purpose of making such further or other orders herein for the welfare of said person as may from time to time be found to be in accordance with equity and in accordance with the statute in such case made and provided.’ Later the plaintiff in error escaped from the state hospital at Dixon.
On November 23, 1932, when the plaintiff in error was arraigned, he entered a plea of not guilty. His attorney stated that he expected to have the aid of psychiatrists who were not then present but would be available within two or three weeks, and that he wished to reserve the right to withdraw the plea of not guilty and substitute a plea of guilty. The court asked Dr. Harry R. Hoffman of the behavior clinic, who was present, whether he had examined the plaintiff in error. The doctor answered that he had an opinion respecting his sanity, but that he had made no psychological tests. The judge replied that he was informed the plaintiff in error had been in an institution. Dr. Hoffman rejoined: The court inquired whether that institution was for the feebleminded, and Dr. Hoffman answered that it was for the feeble-minded and the epileptic. The court then directed Dr. Hoffman to make an examination of the plaintiff in error and asked when he could present a complete report. The doctor replied it would require a minimum period of two weeks. The court also authorized Dr. Orlando Scott, a psychiatrist for the defense, to examine the plaintiff in error out of the presence of representatives of the state. On December 7, 1932, the time fixed to receive Dr. Hoffman's report, the attorney for the plaintiff in error stated to the court that after reading the report and conferring with the members of the family of the plaintiff in error, they had decided to withdraw the plea of not guilty. The court asked whether the plaintiff in error understood the proceeding. The attorney answered that he did and that he intended to plead guilty. The court, after warning the plaintiff in error of the consequences of such a plea, allowed him to plead guilty to the charge in the indictment.
Some time after the sentence of death was pronounced, the attorney who appeared for the plaintiff in error in the trial court filed a petition to vacate the judgment and sentence. The petitioner alleged that because of his ignorance of the facts and the law he improperly advised the plaintiff in error to enter a plea of guilty and that the latter, acting upon his advice, entered such a plea under a misapprehension. The petition was denied. Thereafter a second petition to vacate the judgment and sentence was filed by an attorney not connected with the case at the time the plea of guilty was entered. This petition disclosed that, after the plaintiff in error had been indicted in the criminal court for robbery, the juvenile court, upon a transfer of the cause from the criminal court, took jurisdiction of his person. In support of this petition, an affidavit by the attorney who represented the plaintiff in error upon the entry of the plea of guilty was filed. The attorney, after setting forth the commitment of the plaintiff in error to the Dixon state hospital and his escape therefrom, averred that he was not aware a plea of guilty could admit the capacity of the plaintiff in error to commit the crime whereof he was charged; that he was not familiar with the law in relation to feeble-minded persons; that he did not know the legal effect of the adjudication of the juvenile court; and that because of his ignorance and inexperience he advised the entry of a plea of guilty when, in view of the decree of the juvenile court, he should have pleaded the want of jurisdiction of the criminal court. This petition was also denied.
It is contended that the trial court erred in not vacating the judgment and sentence upon the disclosure that the juvenile court had adjudged the plaintiff in error a feebleminded person and retained jurisdiction over him and that the decree was in force when his plea of guilty in the present case was entered.
[2] Section 4 of division 13 of the Criminal Code requires that before a plea of guilty may be entered, the court shall fully explain to the person accused the consequences of entering such a plea. Smith-Hurd Rev....
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People v. Wilson
...been made, one of which was that he did not have the assistance of counsel, required the granting of the motion. Also, see People v. Varecha, 353 Ill. 52, 186 N.E. 607. An application to withdraw a plea of guilty is a matter within the sound discretion of the court but, it abused, will be r......
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