State v. O'Keith
| Citation | 15 P.2d 443,136 Kan. 283 |
| Decision Date | 05 November 1932 |
| Docket Number | 30394. |
| Parties | STATE v. O'KEITH. [*] |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Kansas |
Syllabus by the Court.
Judgment and sentence of district court on conviction of minor under 16 years of age of burglary and grand larceny, held void district court being without jurisdiction (Rev. St. 1923 38--411, 38--414, 38--415).
Motion to set aside conviction and sentence on ground court lacked jurisdiction, made in identical case in which judgment was rendered, held direct and not collateral attack.
Void judgment may be set aside at any time.
General rule that judgment in criminal case cannot be set aside after sentence has been satisfied in whole or in part held inapplicable where court was wholly without jurisdiction.
Whether judgment is void or merely voidable is generally immaterial on direct attack.
In 1919, when defendant was under 14 years of age, he was arrested for burglary and grand larceny, arraigned in the district court, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to the state reformatory, and later transferred to the state penitentiary. In 1931, he filed a motion to set aside the judgment on various grounds, his infancy and want of understanding of the criminal proceedings, want of counsel to protect his rights, and want of jurisdiction on the part of the court which sentenced him. The court entertained the motion, heard the evidence adduced in its support, sustained the motion, and set aside the judgment.
Held:
Appeal from District Court, Sedgwick County, Division No. 2; Thornton W. Sargent, Judge.
Criminal prosecution by the State against Charles O'Keith. From an order setting aside a judgment of conviction previously entered, the State appeals.
Roland Boynton, Atty. Gen., Walter T. Griffin, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Geo. L. Adams, Co. Atty., of Wichita, for the State.
C. H. Pugh, Lloyd F. Cooper, C. H. Brooks, Willard Brooks, Howard T. Fleeson, Frederirk W. Aley, and Carl G. Tebbe, all of Wichita, for appellee.
The state brings this appeal on questions reserved by it on an order of the district court of Sedgwick county setting aside a judgment entered against defendant about 13 years ago.
The material facts of present importance are these:
On October 3, 1919, the appellee, who was then a boy 13 years and 11 months old, was arrested on a charge of burglarizing a store building in Wichita and stealing five automobile tires therefrom. An information was filed charging him with burglary in the daytime and grand larceny, and 5 days after his arrest, on October 9, 1919, he was arraigned, and without advice of counsel he pleaded guilty to the charge, and was sentenced to imprisonment in the State Industrial Reformatory for a term of 10 to 15 years.
Pursuant to this judgment and sentence the appellee was incarcerated in the state reformatory. At the oral argument we were advised by counsel that he was later transferred to the penitentiary and set to work in the coal mine, and in some way escaped therefrom and got into trouble in Arkansas, and is in some penal institution in that state at this time.
On January 10, 1931, a motion was filed in his behalf in the district court of Sedgwick county to set aside the judgment and sentence imposed against him on October 9, 1919, for the reason that, when that judgment was rendered and that sentence imposed, he was an infant under sixteen years of age; that owing to his extreme youth he did not understand the nature of the charge or the gravity of the offense; that he was without counsel, and was ignorant of court procedure; and that the court was without jurisdiction to render judgment against him.
The state resisted the motion. The trial court entertained it and heard the evidence, which clearly established the controlling facts. The appellee was shown to have been deserted by his father in his babyhood and his mother had died when he was 3 1/2 years old. The evidence of relatives and an entry of his birth in the family Bible established his age as 13 years, 11 months, and 5 days when he was sentenced to the reformatory. The court, Honorable Thornton W. Sargent, who had received appellee's plea of guilty 12 years previously, sustained the motion, and set aside the judgment.
The state appeals. It contends that the judgment rendered in 1919 was not void. We must hold otherwise. A district court in this state is altogether without jurisdiction to deal with delinguencies of infants under 16 years of age. It is the deliberate policy of this state that infants of tender years, however erring or wayward they may be, shall not be regarded as criminals or dealt with as such R. S. 38--415. The state has created a special tribunal, the juvenile court, to deal with these youngsters; and that court has exclusive jurisdiction of all such persons under 16 years of age. R. S. 38--411; 38--414.
In conformity with the juvenile court statute, this court has repeatedly held that the district court has no jurisdiction to impose a sentence on a delinquent child under 16 years of age.
In State v. Dunn, 75 Kan. 799, 90 P. 231, it was held: "The provisions of the act creating the juvenile court deprive the district court of all jurisdiction over a child under the age of 16 years who is charged with a criminal offense, except to transfer the case to the juvenile court." (Syl. par. 1.)
In State v. Dubray, 121 Kan. 886, 250 P. 316, where this court discussed our statutory policy of dealing with juvenile delinquents, the syllabus reads: ...
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State v. Fountaine, 44831
...sentence may be changed to a new and valid sentence even though the illegal sentence may have been partially executed. (State v. O'Keith, 136 Kan. 283, 15 P.2d 443; State v. Looney, 181 Kan. 402, 312 P.2d 212; Richardson v. Hand, 182 Kan. 326, 320 P.2d 837; Bridges v. State, 197 Kan. 704, 4......
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...rule of also that a sentence if void may be changed to a valid sentence. 15 Am.Jur., Criminal Law, § 477; 168 A.L.R. 706; State v. O'Keith, 136 Kan. 283, 15 P.2d 443; Layman v. Hudspeth, 162 Kan. 445, 176 P.2d 527; State v. Looney, In some jurisdictions a distinction is made between the cor......
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Michell v. State ex rel. Callahan
...defendant was not present; clerical errors in the judgment; and various other technical mistakes. Only in the case of State v. O'Keith, 1932, 136 Kan. 283, 15 P.2d 443, did we find a situation where not only the sentence, but the entire proceedings were void. There, it was held that, since ......
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...original jurisdiction. See Swehla v. Malone, 114 Kan. 712, 220 P. 299; State v. Dubray, 121 Kan. 886, 250 P. 316; and State v. O'Keith, 136 Kan. 283, 15 P.2d 443. cannot be correctly asserted that the juvenile court's jurisdiction is limited to criminal matters because G.S.1935, 38-415, her......