Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/351/12/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 16:31:56+00:00

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Illinois law gives every person convicted in a criminal trial a right of review by writ of error; but a full direct appellate review can be had only by furnishing the appellate court with a bill of exceptions or report of the trial proceedings, certified by the trial judge, and it is sometimes impossible to prepare such documents without a stenographic transcript of the trial proceedings, which are furnished free only to indigent defendants sentenced to death. Convicted in an Illinois state court of armed robbery, petitioners moved in the trial court that a certified copy of the entire record, including a stenographic transcript of the proceedings, be furnished to them without cost. They alleged that they were without funds to pay for such documents, and that failure of the court to provide them would violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Their motion was denied. They then filed a petition under the Illinois Post-Conviction Hearing Act, under which only questions arising under the State or Federal Constitution may be raised. They alleged that there were manifest nonconstitutional errors in the trial which entitled them to have their convictions set aside on appeal, that the only impediment to full appellate review was their lack of funds to buy a transcript, and that refusal to afford full appellate review solely because of their poverty was a denial of due process and equal protection. This petition was dismissed, and the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed, solely on the ground that the petition raised no substantial state or federal constitutional question.
Held: Petitioners' constitutional rights were violated, the judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court is vacated, and the cause is remanded to that Court for further action affording petitioners adequate and effective appellate review. Pp. 351 U. S. 13-26.
Illinois law provides that "Writs of error in all criminal cases are writs of right and shall be issued of course." [Footnote 1] The question presented here is whether Illinois may, consistent with the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, administer this statute so as to deny adequate appellate review to the poor, while granting such review to all others.
the trial court that failure to provide them with the needed transcript would violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court denied the motion without a hearing.
be raised in Post-Conviction proceedings. We granted certiorari. 349 U.S. 937.
disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or anywise destroyed; nor shall we go upon him nor send upon him, but by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."
"ought to obtain right and justice freely, and without being obliged to purchase it, completely and without denial, promptly and without delay, conformably to the laws. [Footnote 13]"
There is no meaningful distinction between a rule which would deny the poor the right to defend themselves in a trial court and one which effectively denies the poor an adequate appellate review accorded to all who have money enough to pay the costs in advance. It is true that a State is not required by the Federal Constitution to provide appellate courts or a right to appellate review at all. See, e.g., McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 153 U. S. 687-688. But that is not to say that a State that does grant appellate review can do so in a way that discriminates against some convicted defendants on account of their poverty. Appellate review has now become an integral part of the Illinois trial system for finally adjudicating the guilt or innocence of a defendant. Consequently at all stages of the proceedings, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses protect persons like petitioners from invidious discriminations. See Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U. S. 196, 333 U. S. 201; Dowd v. United States ex rel. Cook, 340 U. S. 206, 340 U. S. 208; Cochran v. Kansas, 316 U. S. 255, 316 U. S. 257; Frank v. Mangum 237 U. S. 309, 237 U. S. 327.
courts. [Footnote 14] Thus, to deny adequate review to the poor means that many of them may lose their life, liberty or property because of unjust convictions which appellate courts would set aside. Many States have recognized this, and provided aid for convicted defendants who have a right to appeal and need a transcript, but are unable to pay for it. [Footnote 15] A few have not. Such a denial is a misfit in a country dedicated to affording equal justice to all and special privileges to none in the administration of its criminal law. [Footnote 16] There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has. Destitute defendants must be afforded as adequate appellate review as defendants who have money enough to buy transcripts.
U.S. at 340 U. S. 209-210. We do not hold, however, that Illinois must purchase a stenographer's transcript in every case where a defendant cannot buy it. The Supreme Court may find other means of affording adequate and effective appellate review to indigent defendants. For example, it may be that bystanders' bills of exceptions or other methods of reporting trial proceedings could be used in some cases. [Footnote 17] The Illinois Supreme Court appears to have broad power to promulgate rules of procedure and appellate practice. [Footnote 18] We are confident that the State will provide corrective rules to meet the problem which this case lays bare.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois is vacated, and the cause is remanded to that court for further action not inconsistent with the foregoing paragraph.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER joins in this disposition of the case.
Ill.Rev.Stat., 1953, c. 110, § 259.70A (Supreme Court Rule 70A), now Ill.Rev.Stat., 1955, c. 110, § 101.65 (Supreme Court Rule 65). A writ of error may also be prosecuted on a "mandatory record" kept by the clerk, consisting of the indictment, arraignment, plea, verdict and sentence. The "mandatory record" can be obtained free of charge by an indigent defendant. In such instances, review is limited to errors on the face of the mandatory record, and there is no review of trial errors such as an erroneous ruling on the admission of evidence. See People v. Loftus, 400 Ill. 432, 81 N.E.2d 495. See also Cullen v. Stevens, 389 Ill. 35, 58 N.E.2d 456; A Study of the Illinois Supreme Court, 15 U. of Chi.L.Rev. 107, 125.
"A complete bill of exceptions consists of all proceedings in the case from the time of the convening of the court until the termination of the trial. It includes all of the motions and rulings of the trial court, evidence heard, instructions and other matters which do not come within the clerk's mandatory record."
People ex rel. Iasello v. McKinlay, 409 Ill. 120, 124 125, 98 N.E.2d 728, 730.
"With respect to the so-called bystanders' bill of exceptions or the bill of exceptions prepared from someone's memory in condensed and narrative form and certified to by the trial judge -- as to whether that's available in Illinois, I can say that everybody out there understands that it is, but nobody has heard of its ever being actually used in a criminal case in Illinois in recent years. I think if you went back before the days of court reporting, you would find them, but none today. And I will say that Illinois has not suggested in the brief that such a narrative transcript would necessarily or even generally be the equivalent of a verbatim transcript of all of the trial."
"There isn't any way that an Illinois convicted person in a noncapital case can obtain a bill of exceptions without paying for it."
See People v. Yetter, 386 Ill. 594, 54 N.E.2d 532; People v. Johns, 388 Ill. 212, 57 N.E.2d 895; Jennings v. Illinois, 342 U. S. 104, 342 U. S. 109-110, on remand, 411 Ill. 21, 23, 25, 27, 102 N.E.2d 824, 825-827; People v. Joyce, 1 Ill.2d 225, 230, 115 N.E.2d 262, 264-265; People v. La Frana, 4 Ill.2d 261, 266, 122 N.E.2d 583, 585-586; People ex rel. Iasello v. McKinlay, 409 Ill. 120, 98 N.E.2d 728; People v. O'Connell, 411 Ill. 591, 104 N.E.2d 825.
Ill.Rev.Stat., 1955, c. 38, §§ 826-832.
"In any case arising under [the Post-Conviction Hearing Act] in which the presiding judge has determined that the post-conviction petition is sufficient to require an answer, it shall be the duty of the official court reporter to transcribe, in whole or in part, his stenographic notes of the evidence introduced at the trial in which the petitioner was convicted, if instructed so to do by the State's Attorney or by the court."
See note 4 supra, and cases there cited.
A dissenting opinion argues that the constitutional question is narrower because petitioners alleged that a transcript was needed, rather than required. The State made no such claim, and all the briefs and arguments on both sides, together with the opinion of the Illinois Supreme Court, treated the sole question as being as we have stated it.
"Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor."
Dissenting opinions here argue that the Illinois law should be upheld since, by its terms, it applies to rich and poor alike. But a law nondiscriminatory on its face may be grossly discriminatory in its operation. For example, this Court struck down the so-called "grandfather clause" of the Oklahoma Constitution as discriminatory against Negroes although that clause was, by its terms, nondiscriminatory. Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347. See also Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268.
See, e.g., Ariz.Code Ann., 1939, § 44-2525; Ark.Stat., 1947, § 22-357; Page's Ohio Rev.Code Ann., 1954, § 2301.24; S.C.Code, 1952, § 15-1903; McKinney's N.Y.Laws, Crim.Code, 1945 (Supp. 1955), § 456. See also Note, 100 A.L.R. 321.
"We want the people of Oklahoma to understand, one and all, that the poorest and most unpopular person in the state . . . can depend upon it that justice is not for sale in Oklahoma, and that no one can be deprived of his right of appeal simply because he is unable to pay a stenographer to extend the notes of the testimony."
Jeffries v. State, 9 Okla.Cr. 573, 576, 132 P. 823, 824.
See Weatherford v. Wilson, 3 Ill. (2 Scam.) 253 (1840); People ex rel. Maher v. Williams, 91 Ill. 87 (1878); People ex rel. Hall v. Holdom, 193 Ill. 319, 61 N.E. 1014 (1901); People v. Joyce, 1 Ill.2d 225, 230, 115 N.E.2d 262, 264-265 (1953); Miller v. United States, 317 U. S. 192 (1942); Note, 15 Ann.Cas. 737.
confined to history and the most absorptive of powerful social standards of a progressive society. But neither the unfolding content of "due process" nor the particularized safeguards of the Bill of Rights disregard procedural ways that reflect a national historic policy. It is significant that no appeals from convictions in the federal courts were afforded (with roundabout exceptions negligible for present purposes) for nearly a hundred years; and, despite the civilized standards of criminal justice in modern England, there was no appeal from convictions (again with exceptions not now pertinent) until 1907. Thus, it is now settled that due process of law does not require a State to afford review of criminal judgments.
Nor does the equal protection of the laws deny a State the right to make classifications in law when such classifications are rooted in reason.
"The equality at which the 'equal protection' clause aims is not a disembodied equality. The Fourteenth Amendment enjoins 'the equal protection of the laws,' and laws are not abstract propositions."
Tigner v. Texas, 310 U. S. 141, 310 U. S. 147. Since capital offenses are sui generis, a State may take account of the irrevocability of death by allowing appeals in capital cases and not in others. Again, "the right of appeal may be accorded by the State to the accused upon such terms as in its wisdom may be deemed proper." McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 153 U. S. 687-688. The States have exercised this discriminating power. The different States and the same State from time to time have conditioned criminal appeals by fixing the time within which an appeal may be taken, by delimiting the scope of review, by shaping the mechanism by which alleged errors may be brought before the appellate tribunal, and so forth.
266, 122 N.E.2d 583, 585-586.) It has thereby shut off means of appellate review for indigent defendants.
This Court would have to be willfully blind no to know that there have in the past been prejudicial trial errors which called for reversal of convictions of indigent defendants, and that the number of those who have not had the means for paying for the cost of a bill of exceptions is not so negligible as to invoke whatever truth there may be in the maxim de minimis.
Law addresses itself to actualities. It does not face actuality to suggest that Illinois affords every convicted person, financially competent or not, the opportunity to take an appeal, and that it is not Illinois that is responsible for disparity in material circumstances. Of course, a State need not equalize economic conditions. A man of means may be able to afford the retention of an expensive, able counsel not within reach of a poor man's purse. Those are contingencies of life which are hardly within the power, let alone the duty, of a State to correct or cushion. But when a State deems it wise and just that convictions be susceptible to review by an appellate court, it cannot, by force of its exactions, draw a line which precludes convicted indigent persons, forsooth erroneously convicted, from securing such a review merely by disabling them from bringing to the notice of an appellate tribunal errors of the trial court which would upset the conviction were practical opportunity for review not foreclosed.
thus raised by petitioners appearing for themselves, it would savor of disrespect to the Supreme Court of Illinois for us to find an implication in its unqualified rejection of the claims of the petitioners that an effective review other than by bill of exceptions could be had in the present situation. Cf. Diaz v. Gonzalez, 261 U. S. 102, 261 U. S. 105-106. When the case again reaches the Illinois Supreme Court, that court may, of course, find within the existing resources of Illinois law means of according to petitioners effective satisfaction of their constitutional right not to be denied the equal protection of the laws.
We must be mindful of the fact that there are undoubtedly convicts under confinement in Illinois prisons, in numbers unknown to us and under unappealed sentences imposed years ago, who will find justification in this opinion, unless properly qualified, for proceedings both in the state and the federal courts upon claims that they are under illegal detention in that they have been denied a right under the Federal Constitution. It would be an easy answer that a claim that was not duly asserted -- as was the timely claim by these petitioners -- cannot be asserted now. The answer is too easy. Candor compels acknowledgement that the decision rendered today is a new ruling. Candor compels the further acknowledgement that it would not be unreasonable for all indigent defendants, now incarcerated, who at the time were unable to pay for transcripts of proceedings in trial courts, to urge that they were justified in assuming that such a restriction upon criminal appeals in Illinois was presumably a valid exercise of the State's power at the time when they suffered its consequences. Therefore it could well be claimed that thereby any conscious waiver of a constitutional right is negatived.
choice is not limited to a new ruling necessarily retrospective, or to rejection of what the requirements of equal protection of the laws, as now perceived, require. For sound reasons, law generally speaks prospectively. More than a hundred years ago, for instance, the Supreme Court of Ohio, confronted with a problem not unlike the one before us, found no difficulty in doing so when it concluded that legislative divorces were unconstitutional. Bingham v. Miller, 17 Ohio 445. In arriving at a new principle, the judicial process is not impotent to define its scope and limits. Adjudication is not a mechanical exercise, nor does it compel "either/or" determinations.
We should not indulge in the fiction that the law now announced has always been the law and, therefore, that those who did not avail themselves of it waived their rights. It is much more conducive to law's self-respect to recognize candidly the considerations that give prospective content to a new pronouncement of law. That this is consonant with the spirit of our law, and justified by those considerations of reason which should dominate the law, has been luminously expounded by Mr. Justice Cardozo, shortly before he came here and in an opinion which he wrote for the Court. See Address of Chief Judge Cardozo, 55 Report of New York State Bar Assn., 263, 294 et seq., and Great Northern R. Co. v. Sulburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 U. S. 358, 287 U. S. 363-366. Such a molding of law by way of adjudication is peculiarly applicable to the problem at hand. The rule of law announced this day should be delimited as indicated.
"The record in the trial court may consist only of the mandatory record, viz., indictment, arraignment, plea, trial and judgment. . . . This appears in the clerk's record in every case. . . . The record may include also a bill of exceptions, which consists of all of the motions and rulings of the trial court, evidence heard, instructions, and other matters which do not come directly within the clerk's mandatory record. This may be only a part of the record on review when a bill of exceptions is prayed and allowed, and certified by the court. . . . Therefore, when the review is had upon the common law record, the sole matter only that may be considered by the court is error appearing upon the face of the record, and matters may not be added by argument, affidavit, or otherwise, to supply or expand the record. The case must stand or fall upon the errors appearing in the record. Of course, where there is a bill of exceptions, which includes motions, evidence, rulings on evidence, instructions, and the like, and such bill of exceptions is made a part of the record, errors may be reached by the remedy of writ of error. . . ."
People v. Lofts, 400 Ill. 432, 433-434, 81 N.E.2d 495, 497-498.
that the Constitution of the United States compels each State to do so with the consequence that, regardless of the State's legislation and practice to the contrary, this Court must hold invalid state appellate proceedings wherever a required transcript has not been provided without cost to an indigent litigant who has requested that it be so provided. It is one thing for Congress and this Court to prescribe such procedure for the federal courts. It is quite another for this Court to hold that the Constitution of the United States has prescribed it for all state courts.
In the administration of local law the Constitution has been interpreted as permitting the several States generally to follow their own familiar procedure and practice. In so doing, this Court has recognized the widely differing but locally approved procedures of the several States. Whether approving of the particular procedures or not, this Court has treated them largely as matters reserved to the States and within the broad range of permissible "due process" in a constitutional sense.
without violating the Constitution. Very often we have cases where the convicted seek only to avoid the death penalty. As all practicing lawyers know who have defended persons charged with capital offenses, often the only goal possible is to avoid the death penalty. There is something pretty final about a death sentence.
If the actual practice of law recognizes this distinction between capital and noncapital cases, we see no reason why the legislature of a State may not extend the full benefit of appeal to those convicted of capital offenses and deny it to those convicted of lesser offenses. It is the universal experience in the administration of criminal justice that those charged with capital offenses are granted special considerations. Examples of such will readily occur. All States allow a larger number of peremptory challenges of jurors in capital cases than in other cases. Most States permit changes of venue in capital cases on different terms than in other criminal cases. Some States require a verdict of 12 jurors for conviction in a capital case, but allow less than 12 jurors to convict in noncapital cases. On the other side of the coin, most States provide no statute of limitations in capital cases. We think the distinction here made by the Illinois statute between capital cases and noncapital cases is a reasonable and valid one.
lawyers and better investigations of their cases. Some can afford bail, some cannot. Why fix bail at any reasonable sum if a poor man can't make it?
MR. JUSTICE BLACK's opinion is not limited to the future. It holds that a past, as well as a future, conviction of crime in a state court is invalid where the State has failed to furnish a free transcript to an indigent defendant who has sought, as petitioner did here, to obtain a review of a ruling that was dependent upon the evidence in his case. This is an interference with state power for what may be a desirable result, but which we believe to be within the field of local option.
1. Inadequacy of the Record. -- I would decline to decide the constitutional question tendered by petitioners because the record does not present it in that "clean-cut,"
"concrete," and "unclouded" form usually demanded for a decision of constitutional issues. Rescue Army v. Municipal Court of Los Angeles, 331 U. S. 549, 331 U. S. 584. In my judgment, the case should be remanded to the Illinois courts for further proceedings, so that we might know the precise nature of petitioners' claim before passing on it.
"petitioners are poor persons with no means of paying the necessary fees to acquire the Transcript and Court Records needed to prosecute an appeal from their convictions."
For my part, I cannot tell whether petitioners' claim is that a transcript was "needed" because (a) under Illinois law, a transcript is a prerequisite to appellate review of trial errors, [Footnote 2/1] or (b) as a factual matter, petitioners could not prepare an adequate bill of exceptions short of having a transcript.
presented by petitioners' bare allegation that they were unable to purchase a transcript would be: is an indigent defendant, who has not shown that he is unable to obtain full appellate review of his conviction by a narrative bill of exceptions, constitutionally entitled to the added advantage of a free transcript of the trial proceedings for use as a bill of exceptions? I need hardly pause to suggest that such a claim would present no substantial constitutional question.
constitutional question in the abstract form in which it has been presented here.
According to petitioners' tabulation, no more than 29 States provide free transcripts as of right to indigents convicted of noncapital crimes. Thus, the sweeping constitutional pronouncement made by the Court today will touch the laws of at least 19 States, [Footnote 2/4] and will create a host of problems affecting the status of an unknown multitude of indigent convicts. A decision having such wide impact should not be made upon a record as obscure as this, especially where there are means ready at hand to have clarified the issue sought to be presented.
who "needs" a transcript in order to appeal constitutionally entitled, regardless of the nature of the circumstances producing that need, to have the State either furnish a free transcript or take some other action to assure that he does, in fact, obtain full appellate review?
2. Equal Protection. -- In finding an answer to that question in the Equal Protection Clause, the Court has painted with a broad brush. It is said that a State cannot discriminate between the "rich" and the "poor" in its system of criminal appeals. That statement, of course, commands support, but it hardly sheds light on the true character of the problem confronting us here. Illinois has not imposed any arbitrary conditions upon the exercise of the right of appeal, nor any requirements unnecessary to the effective working of its appellate system. Trial errors cannot be reviewed without an appropriate record of the proceedings below; if a transcript is used, it is surely not unreasonable to require the appellant to bear its cost, and Illinois has not foreclosed any other feasible means of preparing such a record. Nor is this a case where the State's own action has prevented a defendant from appealing. Cf. Dowd v. United States ex rel. Cook, 340 U. S. 206; Cochran v. Kansas, 316 U. S. 255. All that Illinois has done is to fail to alleviate the consequences of differences in economic circumstances that exist wholly apart from any state action.
The Court thus holds that, at least in this area of criminal appeals, the Equal Protection Clause imposes on the States an affirmative duty to lift the handicaps flowing from differences in economic circumstances. That holding produces the anomalous result that a constitutional admonition to the States to treat all persons equally means, in this instance, that Illinois must give to some what it requires others to pay for. Granting that such a classification would be reasonable, it does not follow that a State's failure to make it can be regarded as discrimination.
It may as accurately be said that the real issue in this case is not whether Illinois has discriminated, but whether it has a duty to discriminate.
I do not understand the Court to dispute either the necessity for a bill of exceptions or the reasonableness of the general requirement that the trial transcript, if used in its preparation, be paid for by the appealing party. The Court finds in the operation of these requirements, however, an invidious classification between the "rich" and the "poor." But no economic burden attendant upon the exercise of a privilege bears equally upon all, and, in other circumstances, the resulting differentiation is not treated as an invidious classification by the State, even though discrimination against "indigents" by name would be unconstitutional. Thus, while the exclusion of "indigents" from a free state university would deny them equal protection, requiring the payment of tuition fees surely would not, despite the resulting exclusion of those who could not afford to pay the fees. And if imposing a condition of payment is not the equivalent of a classification by the State in one case, I fail to see why it should be so regarded in another. Thus, if requiring defendants in felony cases to pay for a transcript constitutes a discriminatory denial to indigents of the right of appeal available to others, why is it not a similar denial in misdemeanor cases or, for that matter, civil cases?
is not the typical equal protection question of the reasonableness of a "classification" on the basis of which the State has imposed legal disabilities, but rather the reasonableness of the State's failure to remove natural disabilities. The Court holds that the failure of the State to do so is constitutionally unreasonable in this case, although it might not be in others. I submit that the basis for that holding is simply an unarticulated conclusion that it violates "fundamental fairness" for a State which provides for appellate review, and thus apparently considers such review necessary to assure justice, not to see to it that such appeals are, in fact, available to those it would imprison for serious crimes. That, of course, is the traditional language of due process, see Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455, 316 U. S. 462, and I see no reason to import new substance into the concept of equal protection to dispose of the case, especially when to do so gives rise to the all-too-easy opportunity to ignore the real issue and solve the problem simply by labeling the Illinois practice as invidious "discrimination."
the counties. [Footnote 2/7] And, in 1953, free transcripts were authorized for the presentation of constitutional claims. [Footnote 2/8] Thus, Illinois has steadily expanded the protection afforded defendants in criminal cases, and, in recent years, has made substantial strides towards alleviating the natural disadvantages of indigents. Can it be that, while it was not unconstitutional for Illinois to afford no appeals, its steady progress in increasing the safeguards against erroneous convictions has resulted in a constitutional decline?
Of course, the fact that appeals are not constitutionally required does not mean that a State is free of constitutional restraints in establishing the terms upon which appeals will be allowed. It does mean, however, that there is no "right" to an appeal in the same sense that there is a right to a trial. [Footnote 2/9] Rather, the constitutional right under the Due Process Clause is simply the right not to be denied an appeal for arbitrary or capricious reasons. Nothing of that kind, however, can be found in any of the steps by which Illinois has established its appellate system.
not capricious. And that it has never generally been so regarded is evidenced by the fact that our attention has been called to no State in which in forma pauperis appeals were established contemporaneously with the right of appeal. I can find nothing in the past decisions of this Court justifying a holding that the Fourteenth Amendment confines the States to a choice between allowing no appeals at all or undertaking to bear the cost of appeals for indigents, which is what the Court, in effect, now holds.
cases became entitled to free transcripts, [Footnote 2/10] and, to date, approximately one-third of the States still have not taken that step. With due regard for the constitutional limitations upon the power of this Court to intervene in State matters, I am unable to bring myself to say that Illinois' failure to furnish free transcripts to indigents in all criminal cases is "shocking to the universal sense of justice."
As I view this case, it contains none of the elements hitherto regarded as essential to justify action by this Court under the Fourteenth Amendment. In truth, what we have here is but the failure of Illinois to adopt as promptly as other States a desirable reform in its criminal procedure. Whatever might be said were this a question of procedure in the federal courts, regard for our system of federalism requires that matters such as this be left to the States. However strong may be one's inclination to hasten the day when in forma pauperis criminal procedures will be universal among the States, I think it is beyond the province of this Court to tell Illinois that it must provide such procedures.
The Illinois Supreme Court may have interpreted the pleadings in this manner. It described the petitioners' "sole contention" as being that they were "unable to purchase a bill of exceptions and were, therefore, unable to obtain a complete review by this Court." This suggests that the state court construed the claim to be that an appeal was necessarily precluded by the lack of a transcript, not that the petitioners' particular circumstances produced that result. If that is what the Illinois court meant, its construction, having a reasonable basis, would be binding on this Court, and would constitute an adequate state ground for the denial of any claim premised on the existence of particular circumstances preventing the petitioners from pursuing other available methods of review.
Weatherford v. Wilson, 3 Ill. (2 Scam.) 253 (1840); People ex rel. Maher v. Williams, 91 Ill. 87 (1878); People ex rel. Munson v. Gary, 105 Ill. 264 (1883); People ex rel. Hall v. Holdom, 193 Ill. 319, 61 N.E. 1014 (1901); 162 East Ohio Street Hotel Corp. v. Lindheimer, 368 Ill. 294, 13 N.E.2d 970 (1938); Weber v. Sneeringer, 247 Ill.App. 294 (1928); Merkle v. Kegerreis, 350 Ill.App. 103, 112 N.E.2d 175 (1953); see also People ex rel. North American Restaurant v. Chetlain, 219 Ill. 248, 76 N.E. 364 (1906); Mayville v. French, 246 Ill. 434, 92 N.E. 919 (1910); People ex rel. Simus v. Donoghue, 377 Ill. 122, 35 N.E.2d 371 (1941). This line of cases was reaffirmed by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1953, just three months before the petitioners were convicted, in People v. Joyce, 1 Ill.2d 225, 230, 115 N.E.2d 262, 264-265, in which the Williams, Gary, Holdom, and Lindheimer cases, supra, were cited with approval for the proposition that trial errors may be presented on a writ of error by a "constructed or bystander's' bill of exceptions." The holding of that case was that a defendant to whom these alternative methods were not available "as a practical matter" because of his indigence and incarceration did not, by failing to seek direct review of his conviction, "waive" the right given him by the Illinois Post-Conviction Hearing Act to assert his constitutional claims in a collateral proceeding. Accord: People v. La Frana, 4 Ill.2d 261, 266, 122 N.E.2d 583, 585-586. That holding does not, of course, detract from the court's affirmation that a transcript is not legally required for appellate review of trial errors. It is equally clear that Illinois' recognition of "practicalities" in not applying a strict doctrine of waiver to the remedial Post-Conviction Hearing Act does not necessarily mean that the alternative methods of obtaining review are not sufficiently "available" to satisfy any supposed constitutional requirements. That question would depend upon the facts of the particular case -- of which we have not been informed here -- and upon the evaluation of them for constitutional purposes.
Of these 19, at least 5 have, however, expressly given the trial courts discretionary power to order free transcripts in noncapital cases. Mass.Ann.Laws, c. 278, § 33A, as amended by Acts 1955, c. 352 ("by order of the court"); N.D.Rev.Code, 1943, § 27-0606 (when "there is reasonable cause therefor"); Ore.Rev.Stat., 1953, § 21.470 (if "justice will be thereby promoted"); S.D.Code, 1939, § 34.3903 (if "essential to the protection of the substantial rights of the defendant"); Wash.Rev.Code, 1951, § 2.32.240 (if "justice will thereby be promoted"). The Rhode Island Supreme Court has reached a similar result by interpretation of a statute authorizing reimbursement for expenditures of appointed counsel. State v. Hudson, 55 R.I. 141, 179 A. 130 (1935) ("sound discretion . . . to be exercised with great circumspection and only for serious cause"). In addition, petitioners' brief refers to a letter from the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors which states that free transcripts may be furnished in the discretion of the court in noncapital cases.
Ill.Rev.L. 1827, Crim.Code, §§ 186, 187; Ill.Rev.Stat., 1955, c.38, § 769.1.
Ill.Laws 1927, p. 400 § 1 1/2; Ill.Rev.Stat., 1955, c. 38, § 769a.
58 Stat. 5, 28 U.S.C. §§ 753(f), 1915(a). On the prior federal practice, see, e.g., Estabrook v. King, 119 F.2d 607, 610 (C.A. 8th Cir.); United States v. Fair, 235 F. 1015 (D.C.N.D. Calif.).

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