85 N.E.2d 24 | Ill. | 1949
On December 7, 1928, the defendant, Edmond Arthur Rohde, was indicted in the criminal court of Cook County for the crime of burglary, alleged to have been committed on November 15, 1928. Upon defendant's request, counsel was appointed to represent him. A jury trial resulted in a verdict finding defendant guilty. Motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were overruled, and, on January 29, 1929, defendant was sentenced to the Illinois State Reformatory at Pontiac for an indeterminate sentence. Defendant was allowed thirty days within which to prepare and file his bill of exceptions. No bill of exceptions, however, has ever been filed. Appearing pro se, Rohde prosecutes this writ of error.
Defendant contends, first, that section 36 of division I of the Criminal Code, effective July 6, 1927, and in force in January, 1929, (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1947, chap. 38, par. 84,) when judgment was rendered against defendant, fixing the punishment for burglary at imprisonment in the penitentiary for "any term of years not less than one year or for life," violates Federal and State constitutional guarantees. This cause is before us on the common-law record, alone. So far as the common-law record discloses, neither defendant nor his counsel interposed any objection in the criminal court to any action taken before, during, or after the trial. The asserted constitutional question is presented for the first time in this court. Before we consider a question involving the construction of the constitution or the constitutional validity of a statute, it must appear from the record that a fairly debatable constitutional question was urged in the trial court, the ruling on it must be preserved in the record for review and error must be assigned upon it here.Housing Authority v. Church of God,
Defendant's second contention is that the Sentence and Parole Act of 1917 is invalid and unconstitutional by virtue *43
of its provisions for general sentences, "which term implies indefinite sentences when viewed in conjunction with the burglary statute." Apart from the fact that the Sentence and Parole Act has been repeatedly held immune to constitutional attack, (People v. Roche,
Defendant contends, in the third place, that an illegally constituted grand jury presented the indictment and that it is, in consequence, void. He asserts that the names of women and Negroes were excluded from the panels from which both the grand jury and the petit jury were drawn, thereby depriving him of constitutional rights. Under the jury statute in force in December, 1928, and January, 1929, the inclusion of women on the grand and petit juries which indicted and tried defendant was improper. (People v. Jones,
The remaining contention made by defendant is that the evidence discloses the burglary charged in the indictment was committed on November 16, 1928, rather than on November 15, 1928, the date stated in the indictment. This assertion finds support only in copies of a letter of the State's Attorney to the Supervisor of Pardons and Paroles at Pontiac, dated January 30, 1929, made conformably to the applicable statute, (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1927, chap. 38, par. 806,) the complaint for examination in the municipal court of Chicago, dated November 22, 1929, and in what is captioned "Arrest Slip," dated November 19, 1928. The copies of the State's Attorney's letter, the municipal court complaint and arrest slip are included as appendices to defendant's brief. Even if incorporated in, no one of them constitutes a part of, the common-law record. (People v.Dwyer,
The judgment of the criminal court of Cook County is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed. *45
