## Facts

- Walter Koons and others removed money (about $95) from slot machines located at a private club without putting coins into the machines.
- The slot machines were illegal gambling devices under New York law.
- Koons was charged with petit larceny and pleaded guilty; a jail sentence was imposed.
- Koons attempted to appeal, but the appeal was dismissed after he failed to appear.
- Koons then sought a writ of habeas corpus against Elling, the sheriff holding him, claiming his confinement was unlawful because:
  - money taken from an unlawful slot machine could not be the subject of larceny, making his guilty plea and conviction a nullity; and
  - the conviction/commitment paperwork was defective (including an asserted failure to file a certificate of conviction and a mistaken notation suggesting execution of the judgment was “suspended”).

## Issues

1. Whether habeas corpus lies where a prisoner argues his larceny conviction is void because money taken from illegal slot machines cannot, as a matter of law, be “property” capable of being stolen.
2. Whether claimed defects in the criminal record—such as nonfiling of the certificate of conviction and a clerical statement that execution was “suspended”—render the imprisonment unlawful and require release on habeas corpus.
3. Whether a guilty plea bars collateral attacks based on nonjurisdictional defects in the accusatory instrument or record.

## Decision

- The court dismissed the habeas petition and remanded Koons to the sheriff’s custody.
- The court rejected Koons’s argument that the illegality of the slot machines prevented the money inside from being the subject of larceny; the money had value and a legally recognized owner/possessor for larceny purposes (including by statute, through the public welfare fund).
- Alleged failures to file the certificate of conviction, and clerical errors in the certificate/commitment (including “suspended” language), did not void the judgment or make custody unlawful where the court had authority to convict and sentence.
- Koons’s guilty plea foreclosed collateral challenges other than a claim that the accusatory instrument failed to charge any crime (a jurisdictional defect), and the court found a crime was charged.

## Legal Principles

- Habeas corpus is not a substitute for appeal; it is available to attack detention only when the underlying judgment is void, such as when the accusatory instrument fails to charge any offense and the court therefore lacks jurisdiction.
- A guilty plea generally waives objections to defects in the accusatory instrument and prior proceedings, except defects that mean no crime is charged.
- Money connected to illegal gambling devices can still be “property” for larceny; illegality of the device or transaction does not prevent the law from recognizing ownership or a superior right of possession for theft analysis.
- Recordkeeping problems relating to certificates of conviction or commitment papers, and clerical mistakes in those documents, do not by themselves nullify a valid sentence imposed by a court with authority to act.

## Conclusion

People ex rel. Koons v. Elling held that habeas corpus did not provide a route to overturn Koons’s petit larceny conviction after a guilty plea where the sentencing court had jurisdiction and the charge stated an offense: money removed from illegal slot machines could be stolen, and asserted filing omissions and clerical mistakes in conviction papers were not grounds for release on collateral review.


People ex rel. Koons v. Elling, 77 N.Y.S.2d 103 (1948)