Illinois Appellate Court
Criminal Court
Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
Court erred in summarily dismissing petition for postconviction relief, after conviction for unlawful delivery of a controlled substance as petition was not based entirely on indisputably meritless legal theories. Petition alleged that State violated Brady v. Maryland by failing to disclose to the defense, prior to trial, that police detective had commingled substances by dumping contents of 15 bags into a single container, and that crime lab never had opportunity to analyze the 15 substances separately. Thus, Defendant had arguable basis for ineffective assistance of counsel based on his counsel's stipulation that total amount of substance was cocaine.(STEIGMANN and POPE, concurring.)