People v. Wilfong

• Decision Date: 18 May 1960
• Docket Number: No. 34786,34786
• Citation: People v. Wilfong, 168 N.E.2d 726, 19 Ill.2d 406 (Ill. 1960)
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. William George WILFONG, Plaintiff In Error.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 726

168 N.E.2d 726

19 Ill.2d 406

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. William George WILFONG, Plaintiff In Error.

No. 34786.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 18, 1960.

William George Wilfong pro se.

Grenville Beardsley, Atty. Gen., Darrell E. Klink, State's Atty., Lincoln, Fred G. Leach, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Rodney G. Bucher, Asst. State's Atty., Lincoln, for defendant in error.

DAILY, Justice.

Defendant, William George Wilfong, prosecutes this writ of error to review a judgment of the circuit court of Livingston County sentencing him to the penitentiary for a term of five to ten years for the crime of assault with intent to murder.

On the night of October 22, 1956, two members of the Illinois State Police, Glenn A. Nichols and Robert Golightly, were shot and wounded after they had stopped an automobile for a traffic violation at the intersection of Routes 66 and 10. Defendant was the driver of the car and was accompanied by three men, Young, Johnson and Jopp. Upon the officers' signal defendant first pulled off the highway, but immediately started up again only to be overtaken when he turned off onto an access road that led only to a filling station. When defendant and the other occupant of the front seat jumped out of the car with their hands up, officer Nichols saw a revolver on the front seat and informed all of the men they were under arrest. In a melee that followed, both officers were shot with either Young and Jopp, or Young alone, doing the shooting. Subsequently it was found the occupants of the car had a total of seven guns in their possession.

An indictment returned to the circuit court of Logan County consisted of six counts, each of which, in varying ways, jointly charged defendant and his companions with making a felonious assault on Nichols and Golightly with the intent to kill and murder them. After being granted a change of venue to Livingston County each of the accused men entered a plea of not guilty. A jury was selected to try them but, on the second day of the trial, defendant requested leave to withdraw his plea of not guilty and to enter a plea of guilty to the indictment. When he persisted after being fully admonished by the court as to the consequences of a plea of guilty, the substituted plea was accepted and judgment entered that defendant stood convicted of the offense of assault with intent to commit murder in the manner and form charged in the indictment and each count thereof. A hearing in aggravation and mitigation was held, after which defendant was sentenced to the penitentiary.

Citing the familiar principle that a plea of guilty is ineffective to waive objections to a void indictment (People v. Temple, 2 Ill.2d 266, 276, 118 N.E.2d 271), defendant urges that the judgment must be reversed because the indictment improperly charged him with two separate and distinct felonies, viz., an assault with intent to kill Nichols and an assault with intent to kill Golightly. Although an indictment may not charge separate and distinct offenses totally disconnected from each other (People v. Richie, 317 Ill. 551, 148 N.E. 265), where it is clear that they grow out of the same act or transaction, separate and distinct offenses may be charged in the same indictment and stated, in different ways, in as many counts as necessary. People v. Grodkiewicz, 16 Ill.2d 192, 157 N.E.2d 16; People v. Mulrenin, 415 Ill. 123, 112 N.E.2d 477; People v. Gray, 402 Ill. 590, 85 N.E.2d 2. The same authorities hold that the prosecutor is required to elect upon which count of an indictment he will rely for...