Schroers v. People

• Decision Date: 18 March 1948
• Docket Number: No. 30429.,30429.
• Citation: Schroers v. People, 399 Ill. 428, 78 N.E.2d 219 (Ill. 1948)
• Parties: SCHROERS v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

399 Ill. 428

78 N.E.2d 219

SCHROERS

v.PEOPLE.

No. 30429.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

March 18, 1948.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Franklin County; Caswell J. Crebs, judge.

Peter Schroers was convicted of murder on his plea of guilty and sentenced to the penitentiary for life.From a judgment dismissing defendant's motion for writ of error coram nobis, defendant appeals.

Reversed and cause remanded with directions.

Peter Schroers, pro se.

George F. Barrett, Atty. Gen. (J. Max Mitchell, State's Atty., of Benton, of counsel), for the People.

MURPHY, Chief Justice.

An indictment returned in the circuit court of Franklin County in January, 1923, charged appellant, Peter Schroers, with the crime of murder.On February 26, 1923, he was before the court represented by counsel, and after being duly arraigned entered a plea of not guilty.On April 2 following, the case was called for trial but before the selection of the jury had been completed appellant obtained permission to withdraw his plea of not guilty and tendered a plea of guilty.The plea was accepted and he was adjudged to be guilty of murder and on April 3, 1923, he was sentenced to the penitentiary for life.The victim of his unlawful act was his wife, Marie.

In January, 1947, appellant filed a motion in the court from which he had been sentenced asking that the judgment of conviction be recalled and set aside by reason of error of fact.The grounds alleged in support of the motion are that appellant was insane or mentally ill, that he could not understandingly enter a plea of guilty, and that if the court had known of such fact, the judgment would not have been entered on his plea.The sufficiency of appellant's motion for writ of error coram nobis was challenged by a countermotion to dismiss, filed on behalf of the People.The countermotion to dismiss admitted facts will pleaded.Chapman v. North American Life Ins. Co., 292 Ill. 179, 126 N.E. 732.The countermotion was sustained and after appellant had elected to stand on his motion, a judgment was entered striking the cause.

The grounds stated in appellee's countermotion to dismiss may be summarized under three general heads: (1) That it appears from appellant's motion and exhibits attached that there is no error in the record, that if there was any error, it is traceable to the misjudgment of appellant or his attorney in tendering the plea of guilty; (2) that appellant relies upon evidence that would not be admissible to prove the facts contended for and that when the motion is stripped of such immaterial and irrelevant matter, it does not contain facts that would warrant action, and (3) that since the writ was not asked for within five years from the rendition of the judgment the same is barred by limitation.

The writ of error coram nobis as known at the common law was abolished by the act of 1872, andsection 66 of the Practice Act was substituted therefor.Ill.Rev.Stat.1874, chap. 110, par. 67.The substance of such act was that the errors which could have been raised by the common-law writ were available by the statutory motion.Such statute was re-enacted, with slight changes, to become section 89 of the Practice Act of 1907, and in almost the same language it is now section 72 of the Civil Practice Act. Ill.Rev.Stat.1947, chap. 110, par. 196.The present statute provides that all errors of fact which could have been corrected by the common-law writ may now be corrected by the court in which the error was committed, on motion in writing made at any time within five years after the rendition of the final judgment in the case.

The facts disclosed by appellant's motion, and which appellee's countermotion to dismiss admits to be true, are as follows.Appellant and his wife, Marie, were born in Germany.They came to this country when they were about twenty-seven years of age.He engaged in coal mining, first residing in the city of Belleville and later at West Frankfort.Their married life was turbulent, interspersed with quarrels and several temporary separations.One of such quarrels occurred on November 8, 1918, and at that time the wife, Marie, shot appellant in or near the right ear.The bullet fractured the skull, caused some damage to the brain tissue and lodged at the base of the brain and in such close proximity to it that medical experts considered it unwise to remove it.Facial paralysis developed and when appellant was taken to the Barnes Hospital at St. Louis, Missouri, for treatment six weeks after the shooting, an operation was performed which tended to correct the paralyzed condition of the face.

It appears by affidavits of persons who knew appellant at the time he was wounded and after, that immediately following the shooting he became morose and appeared entirely changed.One or two of the affiants state that he did not know the members of his family and at one time he attempted suicide.On January 4, 1923, following a quarrel, appellant became greatly excited and very angry.His wife escaped from the home and ran into the home of a neighbor.Appellant followed her and fired three shots into her body, killing her instantly.

The day appellant was sentenced to the penitentiary, the then State's Attorney of Franklin County prepared a statement to be filed with the Department of Public Welfare, Division of Pardons and Paroles, setting forth a brief statement of the facts.He stated that there was no provocation for the crime, that his defense was insanity, a question on which there was evidence both for and against.When appellant made an application in June, 1933, to the Department of Public Welfare for parole, the attorney who was the former State's Attorney, addressed a second communication to the board.In this statement he referred to the fact that in his former letter he had stated that the defense was insanity, and that there was evidence both for and against such defense.In the second letter he concedes that the former letter might have conveyed an erroneous impression and closes it by saying that the case was not submitted to a jury, that no evidence was heard, and that there were facts both for and against his defense of insanity.In a third letter dated January 18, 1943, addressed to the Department of Public Welfare, Division of Correction, the same attorney stated: ‘I well remember his conduct and appearance at the time he entered his plea of guilty.He sat in the court room crying and did not appear to have any too clear an understanding of what was going on.I doubt that he was normal mentally.To what extent he was abnormal I cannot say.’

Joe Talford, who was the jailor and in custody of appellant in the county jail before the sentence, makes an affidavit in which he states that prior to his incarceration in the penitentiary, he observed appellant's son deliver certified checks to appellant, and that the following day appellant became angry and while enraged tore the checks into fragments and scattered them about the jail.He says that ‘he(appellant) apparently was unconscious of the actual happenings at that time.’

William Winstead and Jewel Winstead make affidavit that they were present during the selection of the jury in the case in which appellant was a defendant, and that they heard the attorney who was defending appellant call appellant's spiritual adviser,asking him to urge appellant to enter a plea of guilty.The attorney is quoted in said affidavits as stating that he did not want to see an insane man hanged.

About eleven months after appellant had been incarcerated in the penitentiary he was examined by a state medical adviser.The report that he gave the warden of the penitentiary at that time refers to the history of the gunshot wound in the right ear and notes that the appellant had a right-side facial paralysis and deafness in the right ear.He says: ‘I am of the opinion that he still suffers from some inter-cranial involvement as a result of the injury.I also believe that he suffers considerably from dizziness * * *.I am also of the opinion, in mentality he is not entirely normal.’Various other medical examinations were made of appellant, all culminating in reports showing that he was impulsive, irritable, suffered from amnesia accompanied by...