Hawks v. the People

At the October Term, 1944, of the circuit court of Winnebago County, the petitioner, Thomas E. Hawks, was indicted and pleaded guilty to the crime of rape, and was sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of his natural life. In July, 1946, he filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis, to which a motion to strike was sustained. Later he filed an amended petition setting forth, in substance, that if the facts had been known to the judge at the time, the said judgment would not have been entered, and that the failure to call such facts to the attention of the court was an excusable…