More than five years after his conviction for murder on an
alleged plea of guilty, petitioner petitioned two Illinois courts
for writs of habeas corpus, alleging circumstances which, if true,
were sufficient to show that he had been convicted without due
process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Each court
denied the petition without an opinion on the ground that it failed
to state a cause of action. These orders were not appealable to a
higher state court. It appeared that the proper remedy under
Illinois law was not a writ of habeas corpus, but a statutory
substitute for a writ of error
coram nobis, in respect of
which there was a five-year limitation.
Held:
1. Since the orders denying writs of habeas corpus were not
appealable to a higher state court, this Court is authorized to
review them if they are based on decisions of federal questions. P.
328 U. S.
213.
2. Since it appears that the petitions for writs of habeas
corpus probably were denied because that was not the proper remedy
under Illinois law, the judgments do not clearly present federal
questions. P.
328 U. S.
216.
3. The situation is not altered by the fact that the five-year
statute of limitations on the proper remedy has expired, since it
is not known whether the state courts will construe the statute as
depriving petitioner of his right to challenge a judgment rendered
in violation of constitutional guaranties. P.
328 U. S.
216.
4. Whether petitioner will be denied any remedy in the state
courts will not be known until they have passed on a petition for
the proper remedy under state law. P.
328 U. S.
216.
5. If the State should at all times deny all remedies to persons
imprisoned in violation of the Constitution, the federal courts
would be available to provide a remedy to correct such wrongs. P.
328 U. S. 217.
Dismissed.
Page 328 U. S. 212
Petitioner was denied writs of habeas corpus by state courts
from which there was no appeal. This Court granted certiorari. 327
U.S. 772.
Dismissed, p.
328 U. S. 217.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1940, the petitioner was indicted for murder in the Criminal
Court of Cook County, Illinois. Adjudged to be guilty on an alleged
plea of guilty, he was sentenced to serve ninety-nine years in the
state penitentiary. In 1945, he filed two identical petitions for
habeas corpus, one in the Criminal Court of Cook County and the
other in the Randolph County Circuit Court. In summary, the
allegations of these petitions were:
On March 8th or 9th, 1940, Chicago policemen came to
petitioner's home, accused him of murder, and arrested him. For a
period of four days, these policemen subjected him to mistreatment
in an effort to force him to confess to the crime of murder. The
policemen allegedly abused him, beat him with their hands, with
blackjacks, and with clubs. At the end of four days, under threat
of instant death if he failed to do so, petitioner signed a paper
which he later discovered to be a confession. Petitioner averred
that he was unable to employ counsel, that he had no counsel, and
that he did not consult with counsel during the next two months
while he was confined to jail. According to the allegations,
petitioner was brought into court at the end of that period, and a
public defender appeared as
Page 328 U. S. 213
his counsel; but the public defender declined to permit
petitioner to explain the circumstances surrounding the confession.
Moreover, despite petitioner's repeated assertion of his innocence,
the defender allegedly entered a plea of guilty on behalf of
petitioner. The allegations further assert that the public defender
and the state's attorney threatened petitioner by telling him that
he would burn in the electric chair if he did not keep his mouth
shut, and that, despite these threats, petitioner pleaded not
guilty, and never did at any time consent to the guilty plea which
is the basis for his ninety-nine year sentence.
Petitioner's contention before the two trial courts was that a
judgment and sentence under these circumstances amounted to a
denial of due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Randolph County
Circuit Court denied petitioner's application for habeas corpus
"for want of jurisdiction and failure to state a cause of action."
The Cook County Criminal Court granted the state's motion to
dismiss, made on the ground that the petition on its face failed to
state a cause of action. In neither court was petitioner afforded
an opportunity to offer evidence to prove his allegations. Neither
court wrote an opinion explaining its order. Since Illinois does
not provide for appellate review of an order denying a petition for
a writ of habeas corpus, the orders here involved were entered by
the highest courts of the state that could have entered them.
See White v. Ragen, 324 U. S. 760.
This Court is consequently authorized to review these orders if
they are based on decisions of federal questions.
Tucker v.
Texas, 326 U. S. 517.
Because of the serious violations of the Fourteenth Amendment
alleged by the petitioner, and because of uncertainty as to whether
denial of his petitions rested on an adequate state ground, we
granted certiorari.
Page 328 U. S. 214
The state, through its Attorney General, concedes that the
allegations of the petitions for habeas corpus, if true, would show
that conviction and sentencing of the petitioner violated the due
process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The state contends,
however, that the applications for habeas corpus were not denied on
the ground that the allegations, if proved, would fail to show a
violation of due process. According to the state, the denials of
petitioner's applications rested on the separate and distinct
ground that, in the Illinois state courts, habeas corpus is not the
proper remedy for relief from judgments violating due process of
law in the manner here alleged. The contention is that the
exclusive relief against such judgments is provided by a statutory
substitute for the common law writ of error
coram nobis,
Ch. 110, par.196, Illinois Revised Statutes 1945. The petitioner
counters by calling attention to the fact that the statutory remedy
is not available unless brought within five years after the
rendition of a judgment; that the judgment and sentence against
petitioner was rendered more than five years ago; that,
consequently, if petitioner has no remedy for habeas corpus, he has
no remedy at all; that we should not assume that Illinois grants no
relief to one whose imprisonment violates rights protected by the
United States Constitution,
cf. Smith v. O'Grady,
312 U. S. 329, and
that we should therefore hold that habeas corpus is available to
the petitioner.
From our investigation of the law of the Illinois we conclude
that the denials of the applications in this case could have
rested, and probably did rest, on the ground that habeas corpus is
not the proper remedy in cases such as the one before us. For this
reason, we are without power to review the judgments,
see
Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U. S. 471,
323 U. S. 477,
and the writs of certiorari must be dismissed. The Supreme Court of
Illinois has repeatedly held that a court of the state has
jurisdiction of a
Page 328 U. S. 215
habeas corpus proceeding only where the original judgment of
conviction was void or where something has happened since its
rendition to entitle the petitioner to his release. According to
Illinois Supreme Court decisions, this means that, if the petition
and return in the habeas corpus proceeding show that the court
which rendered the original judgment had jurisdiction over the
person and over the subject matter, and nothing has happened since
the conviction to entitle the applicant to his release, the court
to which the petition is addressed lacks power to discharge the
prisoner. [
Footnote 1] The
petitions for habeas corpus here involved did not challenge the
court's jurisdiction over the person nor did they allege that
anything had happened since the rendition of the judgment which
would entitle the petitioner to his release. The allegations that
petitioner did not consent to the guilty plea and that he was not
represented by proper counsel, moreover, did not challenge
jurisdiction over the subject matter within the meaning of that
term as used in defining the power of Illinois courts to release
prisoners on habeas corpus. [
Footnote 2]
Page 328 U. S. 216
Consequently, it seems highly probable that, under the Illinois
decisions, the writ of habeas corpus was not the proper remedy in
this case. That this is so is further borne out by the fact that,
in Illinois, orders denying petitions for habeas corpus are not
subject to appellate review.
People ex rel. v. McAnally,
221 Ill. 66, 68, 77 N.E. 544-545. We cannot assume that Illinois
would so far depart from its general appellate procedure as to deny
appellate review of orders denying applications for habeas corpus
if such applications were the proper procedure for challenging
violations of fundamental rights to life and liberty guaranteed by
the United States Constitution.
Since the record thus shows that petitioner's applications for a
writ of habeas corpus were probably denied because he did not seek
the proper remedy under Illinois law, it does not appear that the
judgments we are asked to review do not rest on an adequate
nonfederal ground. Nor do the denials of petitioner's applications
for abeas corpus present a federal question merely because the
five-year statute of limitations on the statutory substitute for
the writ of error
coram nobis has expired. Petitioner
claims that this leaves him without any remedy in the state courts.
But we do not know whether the state courts will construe the
statute so as to deprive petitioner of his right to challenge a
judgment rendered in violation of Constitutional guarantees where
his action is brought more than five years after rendition of the
judgment. Nor can we at this time pass upon the suggestion that the
Illinois statute so construed would itself violate due process of
law in that a denial of that remedy, together with a denial of the
writ of habeas corpus, would, taken together, amount to a complete
deprivation of a state remedy where Constitutional rights have been
denied. We would reach that question only after a denial of the
statutory substitute for the writ of error
coram nobis
based on the statute
Page 328 U. S. 217
of limitations had been affirmed by the Supreme Court of the
state. [
Footnote 3]
Furthermore, it cannot be doubted that, if the Illinois should at
all times deny all remedies to individuals imprisoned within the
state in violation of the Constitution of the United States, the
federal courts would be available to provide a remedy to correct
such wrongs.
Ex parte Hawk, 321 U.
S. 114.
Dismissed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON took no part in the consideration or
decision of these cases.
* Together with No. 671,
Woods v. Nierstheimer, Warden,
on certiorari to the Criminal Court of Cook County, Illinois,
argued and decided on the same dates.
[
Footnote 1]
See e.g., People ex rel. v. Zimmer, 252 Ill. 9, 96 N.E.
529, and cases discussed;
People ex rel. v. Siman, 284
Ill. 28, 32, 119 N.E. 940, 942;
People ex rel. v.
Shurtleff, 355 Ill. 210, 189 N.E. 291;
People ex rel.
Courtney v. Thompson, 358 Ill. 81, 192 N.E. 693;
People ex
rel. Barrett v. Bradley, 391 Ill. 169, 62 N.E.2d 788.
[
Footnote 2]
See People ex rel. v. Fisher, 340 Ill. 250 at 260, 172
N.E. 722, at 726, where the Supreme Court of Illinois made the
following statement:
"If the jury is an essential part of the tribunal without which
the court has no jurisdiction of the subject matter, it is not
discernible how, upon a plea of guilty in a criminal case, a valid
judgment can be rendered. Yet the power of the court, without a
jury, upon such a plea, to find the defendant guilty and render
judgment is unquestioned. A court's jurisdiction of the subject
matter is not determined by the plea which a person charged with a
crime may interpose. Before he appeared at the bar of the tribunal,
it either was or was not vested with jurisdiction of the subject
matter of his cause. If the court possessed such jurisdiction, it
was conferred by or pursuant to some provision of the Constitution,
and not by the act or consent of the defendant."
[
Footnote 3]
A judgment in a
coram nobis proceeding is final and
appealable in Illinois.
See People ex rel. v. Green, 355
Ill. 468, 189 N.E. 500.