The People v. Barkan

Following his plea of guilty in January of 1964 to unlawful possession of narcotics, defendant, Jerome Barkan, was sentenced in the circuit court of Cook County to a term of 5 to 10 years imprisonment. He subsequently filed a petition under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1963, ch. 38, pars. 122 — 1 et seq.), alleging that he had been adjudicated mentally ill seven years prior to his plea and had not been subsequently restored. That adjudication was predicated upon a finding of “character disorder C.P.I.”. As a consequence, he alleged that he was incompetent to plead guilty,…