People v. Brown

Defendant pleaded guilty to driving while license revoked and, based on his criminal history, was sentenced to nine years in prison as a Class X offender under section 5-4.5-95(b) of the Unified Code of Corrections. During post-plea proceedings, defendant moved for reconsideration of his sentence, which was denied. He appealed arguing that he was entitled to benefit from amendments to section 5-4.5-95(b) that took effect after his sentencing but before the court ruled on his post-plea motion and that made the statute inapplicable in his case. Defendant also argued that post-plea counsel did not comply with the requirements of SCR 604(d). The appellate court affirmed, finding that defendant was not entitled to retroactive application of the amended version of section 5-4.5-95(b) under the doctrine of invited error because his counsel requested to proceed with reconsideration of defendant’s sentence as if the amendments were inapplicable to defendant. The appellate court further concluded that post-plea counsel was not ineffective because defendant was sentenced before the amendments went into effect and, as a result, he was not entitled to have the new version of the statement applied in his case. The appellate court finally concluded that defendant was afforded a “full and fair” opportunity to present his post-plea claims and that no additional post-plea proceedings were warranted. (DOHERTY and LANNERD, concurring)