People v. Nicholls

374 N.E.2d 194, 71 Ill. 2d 166, 15 Ill. Dec. 759, 1978 Ill. LEXIS 243
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 23, 1978
Docket49389
StatusPublished
Cited by479 cases

This text of 374 N.E.2d 194 (People v. Nicholls) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Nicholls, 374 N.E.2d 194, 71 Ill. 2d 166, 15 Ill. Dec. 759, 1978 Ill. LEXIS 243 (Ill. 1978).

Opinion

MR. JUSTICE RYAN

delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, Ernest Nicholls, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 100 to 150 years in the penitentiary. On direct appeal to this court, his conviction was affirmed (People v. Nicholls (1970), 44 Ill. 2d 533). His petition for post-conviction relief was denied by the circuit court of Madison County. He appealed, in forma pauperis, and the Appellate Court for the Fifth District affirmed the denial (People v. Nicholls (1975), 33 Ill. App. 3d 650). Shortly thereafter the State filed petitions in the Appellate Court for the Fifth District in 28 criminal cases, including that of defendant Nicholls, in which the defendants had been unsuccessful in their appeals in that appellate court. The petitions sought judgment for State’s Attorneys’ fees of $60 in each case ($50 for defending the appeal and $10 per diem fee) (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 53, par. 8). All 28 petitions were consolidated for hearing and disposition. In a supplemental opinion the appellate court held that the State is entitled to have the State’s Attorneys’ fees assessed against unsuccessful criminal appellants, including indigents. One justice dissented. People v. Nicholls (1977), 45 Ill. App. 3d 312.

All of the issues decided by the appellate court and argued in this court were involved in the 28 consolidated cases. However, the supplemental opinion directed that it be filed only in the defendant Nicholls’ case and that similar orders be entered in the other cases. Review in this court has been sought only by Nicholls. Due to the nature of the offense of which he was convicted and the sentence imposed, it is highly unlikely that any questions concerning satisfaction of a judgment for costs from bail is relevant to this case. Also, certain other issues raised are not relevant here. However, these issues are relevant to some of the other 27 cases that were considered with the Nicholls case in the appellate court, and further proceedings in those cases have been stayed pending our disposition of this case. We will therefore consider all of the issues that have been raised on appeal.

The issues which the defendant has presented to this court are:

(1) Whether the State’s Attorney’s fee for defending an unsuccessful appeal by a convicted criminal defendant may be assessed as costs;
(2) Whether a bail deposit posted for an accused may be used to satisfy the obligation for the State’s Attorney’s fee, notwithstanding the defendant’s alleged indigency;
(3) Whether the State’s Attorney is entitled to his fee when a convicted defendant is partially successful on appeal.

Several statutory provisions are relevant. The criminal costs statute provides:

“When any person is convicted of an offense under any statute *** the court shall give judgment that the offender pay the costs of the prosecution.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 38, par. 180-3.)

Section 8 of “An Act concerning fees and salaries ***” ' provides:

“State’s attorneys shall be entitled to the following fees:
* * *
For each case of appeal taken *** to the Supreme or Appellate Court ***, $50.
For each day actually employed in the trial of a case, $10; ***.
* * *
All the foregoing fees shall be taxed as costs to be collected from the defendant, if possible, upon conviction. ***” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 53, par. 8.)

Section 22 of “An Act to revise the law in relation to costs” provides:

“If any person shall take an appeal, *** and the same judgment be affirmed ***, the appellee shall recover his costs, and have execution therefor; ***.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 33, par. 22.)

Section 25 of the latter act provides:

“The clerk of any court in this state is hereby authorized and required to tax and subscribe all bills of costs arising in any cause or proceeding instituted in which he is clerk, agreeably to the rates which shall, for the time being, be allowed or specified by law; and shall in no case allow any item or charge unless he shall be satisfied that the service for which it was made was actually performed in the cause.” Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 33, par. 25.

The defendant correctly notes that the allowance and recovery of costs, being unknown at common law, rests entirely upon the statutory provisions, which must be strictly construed (Galpin v. City of Chicago (1911), 249 Ill. 554, 556). Numerous jurisdictions allow the assessment of prosecution costs, but since such action is based on statute, interpretations of what constitutes allowable costs and when they may be assessed vary widely. (See Annot., 65 A.L.R.2d 854 (1959); Comment, Charging Costs of Prosecution to the Defendant, 59 Geo. L.J. 991 (1971).) In Illinois, basic authority for the assessment for the prosecution costs against defendant is found in the criminal costs statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 38, par. 180—3), quoted above.

In Corbin v. People (1893), 52 Ill. App. 355, 357, “costs of the prosecution,” under the statute involved here, were held to be “all the costs and fees legally earned and taxable in the case.” The court in Corbin also stated:

“When a defendant is convicted the judgment is that he pay the fees thus appearing on the fee book, subject, of course, to his right to question the correctness of the bill by motion to re-tax, or by replevin of the fee bill. A judgment for the costs is incidental to a judgment of conviction. Moody v. People, 20 Ill. 315." 52 Ill. App. 355, 357.

The above-quoted statutory provisions are sufficiently inclusive to authorize and, in fact, direct the clerk to tax as costs and the judgment to include, the specified fees on appeal, as well as at the original trial of the case.

The defendant argues that section 8 of “An Act concerning fees and salaries” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 53, par. 8) was originally enacted to provide compensation to State’s Attorneys prior to the time that they received salaries. Since the office of the State’s Attorney is a salaried position (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 53, par. 7), defendant contends that section 8 is obsolete and should not be applied to the purpose of reimbursing the State for expenses in defending appeals. This court has previously rejected this argument. (See People v. Kawoleski (1923), 310 Ill. 498.) Also, the fact that the section of the statute providing for State’s Attorneys’ fees has not been repealed but was, in fact, amended by the legislature as recently as 1975 (Pub. Act 79—645, sec. 1) evidences its current viability. In summary, we believe that the above-quoted statutory provisions, when read together, indicate a legislative scheme which authorizes the assessment of State’s Attorneys’ fees as costs in the appellate court against an unsuccessful criminal appellant upon affirmance of his conviction.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

People v. Hoddenbach
2023 IL App (1st) 092393-U (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2023)
People v. Riggs
2019 IL App (2d) 160991 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Mortensen
2019 IL App (2d) 170020 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Castillo
2019 IL App (2d) 160873 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Williams
2018 IL App (2d) 160683 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Rebollar-Vergara
2019 IL App (2d) 140871 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Pepitone
2019 IL App (2d) 151161 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. LaPointe
2018 IL App (2d) 160903 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Khan
2018 IL App (2d) 160724 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Johnson
2018 IL App (2d) 160674 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Olson
2019 IL App (2d) 170334 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Maillet
2019 IL App (2d) 161114 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Knapp
2019 IL App (2d) 160162 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Maas
2019 IL App (2d) 160766 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Washington
2019 IL App (2d) 161016 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2019)
People v. Monteleone
2018 IL App (2d) 170150 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2018)
People v. Rodriguez-Palomino
2018 IL App (2d) 160361 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2018)
People v. Gauger
2018 IL App (2d) 150488 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2018)
People v. Trajano
2018 IL App (2d) 160322 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2018)
People v. Ross
2018 IL App (2d) 161079 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2018)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
374 N.E.2d 194, 71 Ill. 2d 166, 15 Ill. Dec. 759, 1978 Ill. LEXIS 243, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-nicholls-ill-1978.