Criminal Law

This case presents question as to whether defendant’s statutory minimum, 52-year cumulative sentence on two attempted first degree murder charges was unconstitutional as applied to defendant, who had committed said offenses as 15-year-old and who was tried and sentenced as adult for said offenses. While Appellate Court rejected defendant’s claim that said sentence violated his 8^th Amendment rights because his transfer to adult court and imposition of instant sentence was not tantamount to natural life sentence without possibility of parole, Ct. nevertheless found that his sentence violated Proportionate Penalties Clause of Ill. Constitution in that said sentence “shocked the moral sense of the community,” where instant sentencing scheme did not permit trial court to give defendant’s youth and mental disorders appropriate weight. Ct. also directed trial court on remand to conduct new hearing on question as to whether defendant was fit to stand trial after he had initially been found to be unfit to stand trial.

This case presents question as to whether trial court properly granted defendant’s motion to suppress results of defendant’s blood-alcohol analysis performed at local hospital at initiation of hospital on night of defendant’s arrest on charge of driving under influence of alcohol. Appellate Court, in affirming trial court’s suppression order, initially noted that under 11-501.4 of Vehicle Code, blood tests performed in regular course of providing emergency medical treatment are admissible, as long as such tests were not requested by law enforcement, but further held that 4^th Amendment does not permit warrantless blood tests incident to lawful arrests for drunk driving in absence of exigent circumstances or consent. Moreover, Appellate Court found that instant blood test was result of State action so as to support instant suppression order, where arresting officer: (1) ignored defendant’s refusal of emergency medical treatment; (2) removed defendant from his vehicle, forcibly placed him on gurney and assisted others in putting defendant into ambulance for transport to hospital; and (3) essentially forced defendant to obtain medical treatment. Appellate Court further found that arresting officer was not faced with exigent circumstances that would have justified warrantless blood draw.

This case presents question as to whether trial court properly dismissed defendant’s post-conviction petition that alleged that trial court violated his due process rights by failing to properly admonish him prior to accepting his guilty plea that his eventual prison sentence would be followed by three-year term of mandatory supervised release (MSR). Record showed that trial court mentioned three-year MSR when informing defendant of minimum and maximum penalties of his offense prior to defendant pleading guilty, and Appellate Court found that such mention satisfied notions of due process, as well as Rule 402. Appellate Court rejected defendant’s claim that trial court was required to mention link of MSR term to specific prison sentence.

This case present question as to whether defendant’s felony murder conviction based on allegation that defendant caused death of victim while committing forcible felony of attempted armed robbery, must be vacated, where indictment failed to indicate which version of attempted armed robbery (i.e., with or without use of firearm) govt. sought to use as predicate offense for felony murder. Appellate Court, in vacating defendant’s felony murder conviction, found that defendant was prejudiced by said failure to identify which version govt. sought to prove at trial. In its petition for leave to appeal, govt. argued that: (1) defendant had waived instant issue by raising instant issue for first time in his petition for rehearing filed in Appellate Court; and (2) Appellate Court’s ruling conflicts with Simmons, 93 Ill.2d 94, which found that indictment need not cite to alleged predicate felony.

This case presents question as to whether defendant’s convictions for stalking and cyber stalking are constitutional. Instant convictions arose out of allegations that defendant called victim on her phone, sent her emails, stood outside her place of business, entered her place of business and made multiple posts on her Facebook page threatening victim’s co-workers and expressing desire to engage in sexual acts with victim. App. Ct. found that both statutes were facially unconstitutional under due process clause of 14^th Amendment, since they lacked mens rea requirement.