Criminal Law

Defendant was involved in a scuffle with a courtroom deputy at Daley Center, after a probate proceeding in which Defendant was a litigant.  After bench trial, Defendant was convicted of attempting to disarm a peace officer and aggravated battery of a peace officer, and sentenced to 3 years. Evidence at trial supported both convictions. At trial, deputy testified that he felt defendant pulling at gun holstered on his right hip, and court clerk also testified that she saw him touching gun and trying to remove it from holster. Defendant admitted that he deliberately touched holster during struggle. Officer's facial injuries, shown in photos, were serious enough to indicate that Defendant knowingly battered him. (PIERCE and SIMON, concurring.)

Defendant was convicted, after jury trial, of being an armed habitual criminal, and was sentenced to 21 years. Court did not abuse its discretion in imposing a 21-year term for Class X felony offense, as sentence was well within the applicable statutory range, and court stated its consideration of all relevant factors in arriving at a sentence, including Defendant's rehabilitative potential. Court was not required to afford Defendant's potential for rehabilitation more weight than seriousness of Defendant's crime, which was preceded by 2 other convictions for offenses involving weapons. (PIERCE, concurring; HYMAN, specially concurring.)

Defendant was convicted, after bench trial, of delivering more than one gram of heroin, and was sentenced to 6 years. Defense attorney's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, and Defendant showed a reasonable probability that the court would have imposed a lesser sentence if his counsel had not erred, given Defendant's minimal criminal history. Defense counsel erred in failing to object to the use of his 2 gun possession convictions from 1995 which resulted from violations of unconstitutional statutes. Failure to object to use of those 2 convictions in aggravation cannot have served any strategic purpose.(PIERCE and HYMAN, concurring.)

Defendant was charged, along with 2 other persons, with 4 counts of 1st-degree murder under a theory of accountability for murder of drug dealer whose corpse and car were found burned in a cemetery. Defendant and 1 co-defendant were granted a new trial when their convictions were reversed on direct appeal due to ineffective assistance of counsel. Court accepted Defendant's guilty plea, but Defendant later moved to withdraw his plea, alleging that at time of plea he had ingested Klonopin so his plea was not knowing or voluntary. Court's conclusion that Defendant was competent to stand trial and plead guilty is not against manifest weight of evidence. Despite court's failure to advise Defendant that applicable sentencing range was 20-60 years or that he had the right to persist in plea of not guilty, and to inquire whether any promises had been used to obtain his plea, Defendant is unable to establish prejudice, and such errors were harmless. Remanded for sentencing hearing, as judge made no finding as to his history of delinquency or criminality. (WELCH and MOORE, concurring.)

Defendant alleged ineffective assistance of counsel, alleging that his trial counsel failed to communicate his desire to accept State's plea offer to charge of criminal sexual assault of his minor stepdaughter. Defendant was sentenced to 7 years after bench trial. Record establishes that Defendant did not express a desire to plead guilty and accept the State's offer and that Defendant repeatedly acquiesced in his counsel's movement of case to trial.  Had Defendant wished to accept a 4-year offer, as he contended in his postconviction petition for ineffective assistance of counsel, he would have said so on the record. Thus, Defendant is bound by his counsel's acquiescence.(McLAREN and BIRKETT, concurring.)

The Sexually Dangerous Persons Act does not contemplate the appointment of an independent psychiatric expert for the State in a recovery proceeding under the Act. Thus, court erred in allowing State to have an independent psychiatric expert evalue Respondent and testify at trial in a recovery proceeding. (GARMAN, FREEMAN, KILBRIDE, KARMEIER, BURKE, and THEIS, concurring.)

The reasonable level of assistance standard applies to both retained and appointed postconviction counsel, after a postconviction petition advances from first-stage proceedings under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act. (GARMAN, FREEMAN, THOMAS, KARMEIER, BURKE, and THEIS, concurring.)

Defendant was convicted, after bench trial, of several charges, including armed robbery, a Class X felony; and was sentenced to extended term of 40 years for armed robbery. The tin snips used to bludgeon elderly victims qualify as a dangerous weapon under statutory offense of armed robbery, as they are essentially a craftsman's tool, but are heavy enough, when used to strike a victim, to become dangerous. As the proportionate penalties argument made by the State (that sentence imposed did not violate proportionate penalties clause, because tin snips was not a "dangerous weapon") was one of law, rather than fact, State was not equitably barred from taking that position in Defendant's postconviction proceedings nor before appellate court. (GARMAN, FREEMAN, THOMAS, KILBRIDE, BURKE, and THEIS, concurring.)